This article is part of openDemocracy’s new series on the care crisis that explores the roots of the problem and inspiring alternatives.

Nadia Whittome MP will be discussing solutions to the care crisis at a parliamentary event co-sponsored by openDemocracy on 11 July from 6-8pm. You can register for free here.

On 5 July, the NHS turns 75. Universal, free at the point of use, determined by need and not the ability to pay; it was a groundbreaking creation that is a beloved institution and continues to be the UK’s proudest achievement.

But today the health service is being let down by a failing social care system. In England, 2.6 million people over 50 have unmet care needs. Thousands languish in hospital beds, well enough to leave but unable to be discharged because of a lack of social care provision. And one in five of us is having to plug the gaps in a broken system by providing care for a loved one.

As a former care worker myself, I’ve seen first-hand just how sorry a state our care system is in. And if we think the care crisis is bad now, we haven’t seen anything yet: in 20 years’ time, a quarter of British people will be over the age of 65.

While everyone agrees that change is urgently needed, proposals from recent Conservative governments have been wholly inadequate: at best insufficient, at worst offensive. In 2017, Theresa May was pressured into an embarrassing U-turn over her so-called ‘dementia tax’ policy, which would have seen disabled people’s homes sold off after they died to pay for their social care.

Boris Johnson kept promising a plan to fix social care, only to announce inadequate piecemeal reforms. Now Rishi Sunak has dropped even these commitments, cutting money for workforce-related initiatives despite staff shortages being a key factor in the current crisis.

Dismayed by this prolonged lack of action, many people have argued that we need a more comprehensive solution: a National Care Service. There are many definitions of what a National Care Service is, or could be. But I believe that we should look to the creation of our NHS for inspiration and be just as bold in our plans.

Firstly, there is an obvious argument for making social care free at the point of use. Just as the NHS operates on the principle that people shouldn’t be forced to pay for falling ill, it’s equally unfair to penalise a person (or their family) for having care needs relating to a disability, chronic illness or old age.

The support that a person needs to live a dignified life should not be a luxury, but a basic right. Universal and well-funded social care would also take some pressure off unpaid carers, who are disproportionately women, enabling them to return to the job market if they choose to.

Secondly, it must be publicly run. While the current system faces challenges in underfunding and unaffordability, money alone won’t fix its structural problems. Channelling additional funding into our existing privatised care model would only mean more money from the public purse lining the pockets of unaccountable private companies. English councils spent £480m in four years on care homes that turned out to be inadequate and unsafe, according to a Guardian investigation earlier this year.

Finally, a National Care Service should prioritise both care recipients and staff. Every single person in the care system deserves to not only have their basic needs met, but to live a fulfilling life as part of society, with as much freedom and independence as possible. And the care workers enabling them to do that – who are primarily women, and disproportionately women of colour and migrants – deserve to be well paid for this work. Currently, they are forced to survive on poverty wages. Imagine the transformative impact paying them well could have on them and their families and our society.

Some will say these ideals are all very well but that a National Care Service would be too expensive. Yet social care, like healthcare, is a universal need – almost all of us will come to rely on it at some point in our lives. It should be funded through progressive taxation, including more effective taxes on wealth, where those with the broadest shoulders bear the largest burden.

As we celebrate the NHS’s 75th anniversary, let’s remember what healthcare in the UK looked like before its creation: unequal and fragmented, delivered by a mix of local authorities, charities and private providers – and often with a hefty price tag attached. Shockingly, today’s social care system still bears all of these hallmarks.

The Conservative Party once dismissed the NHS as too costly, voting against its creation 21 times. But here we are today, 75 years on, and all of us know that it is money well spent. Hopefully, in decades to come, we’ll be saying the same about a National Care Service.