New Health Foundation and Ipsos polling showed strong support for reforming social care but a lack of consensus on how to fund it.

Lucinda Allen, Senior Policy Fellow at The Health Foundation, said: ‘With care mainly provided by for-profit companies, the fact that only 5% of the public think this is how most care providers should be owned is striking. Attempting to reverse this would be expensive, time consuming and cause major upheaval in the sector, so needs to be carefully weighed against other priorities for improving care or alternatives like stronger regulation of providers.'

Four in ten people (40%) thought the standard of social care got worse over the past 12 months, and only 4% thought it improved. Just 9% believed the Government had the right policies.

A lack of understanding was revealed with over a third (39%) believing social care is generally free at the point of need and a further third (34%) believing care for older people was mostly provided by the NHS.

People were divided on how social care should be funded. An additional tax and reduced spending on other public services were the two most popular options, supported by 23%. Other options attracted lower levels of support, including increasing income tax (16%), inheritance tax (15%) and National Insurance contributions (14%). Around one in five people (18%) did not think the Government should increase spending on social care.

In contrast to social care, public perceptions of the NHS continued to improve, with pessimism at its lowest level (34%) since polling began in 2021. However, confidence remained fragile and the public continued to prioritise improving A&E waiting times (36%) and easier access to GP appointments (35%) over improving waiting times for routine hospital treatment (28%), the Government's top priority under Sir Keir Starmer.