Carers should be best paid people in society, not the worst, says Burnham as he vows to overhaul social care system

Carers should be the best paid people in society, not the worst, Andy Burnham has said in a speech calling for an urgent overhaul of the social care system.

Mr Burnham said that he felt urged to speak “from the heart” while speaking from a care home in Enfield, north London, as his father was currently receiving care.

The prime minister said that social care in England was as unfair as American healthcare as he reflected on the many who have had to whittle down their pensions and savings to care for family members due to the current system.

He criticised the “major dereliction of public duty” that had seen politicians unable to solve the social care crisis, decrying years of politicians that “ have put point scoring before fixing this issue.”

Mr Burnham is set to hold a cross-party meeting to discuss tackling the crisis in adult social care, acknowledging that real change would require “give and take” from different factions within the government.

“If we’re going to get to a solution, we’re all going to have to listen to each other,” he said. “Something we don’t do particularly well in politics [is] actually, engage and listen to other perspectives. We’re going to have to find common ground here.”

Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats accepted the prime minister’s invitation “to build that spirit of collaboration from the start”, while Nigel Farage hit out at Mr Burnham for ignoring Reform UK.

Mr Burnham said he that he wanted to start with speaking about what is “good about the system” as he reflected on how “humbling” it had been to watch carers look after his father.

“If you think about that, you know, bringing all of that to the care of someone else’s relative, it’s just an incredible thing, isn’t it?” he said. “They should be the best-paid people in society, not the worst.”

He reflected on how the staff were instead on “poverty pay” as he was made aware of “somebody homeless in a working in a care setting, living out of a mobile home.”

As part of his announcements, he has asked Baroness Louise Casey, who is leading a commission into social care, to bring forward her review by a year with support from health secretary Yvette Cooper and housing secretary Angela Rayner.

“We ideally want to do it even sooner, but we’ve got to be realistic,” he said. “But if we say a year from now that we have that independent review, then I think we can rise to this challenge with the urgency it requires.”

Mr Burnham said he wanted to improve the pay for social care workers and support better training and security in roles, so the workforce conditions were in line with NHS standards.

“In fact, to integrate it more with the NHS workforce, and actually to start to think about progression routes for young people coming into social care, so they they can progress from social care into NHS positions as well, and think about it as one workforce,” he said. “We will not get the care service we all want until we improve the strength and the capability of care at the very front of the service, and that means lifting up the social care workforce as best we possibly can.”

On tax rises, he said: “To come back to the tax point, I will stick to the manifesto. That is important. There is a manifesto. There are commitments there on tax, and I will stick to those commitments.”

This is a breaking news story, more to follow.