The problems facing social care have been building for so long that the intention to give Louise Casey’s Commission a year to work out what they are seems excessive to the point of deliberate delay. In no particular order, as they say on Strictly, there is chronic underfunding, workforce shortages, rising demand, high staff turnover, low pay, inadequate integration with the NHS, variations in quality in different areas, and the sheer expense for the families receiving care.

Many of these are interlinked and the money question lies at the root of all of them. Putting more money into the system is a necessary but not sufficient condition for resolving the care crisis.

Some measures have been introduced to address specific problems. The Integrated Care Boards are meant to bring the NHS and care providers around the same table. This in turn was supposed to mean that the annual complaint of too many hospital beds being occupied by people who should be in care settings would be ameliorated. This winter it has just not happened. Thousands of patients are still unwilling “bed-blockers”, with the twin terrible side-effects of seeing their own recovery damaged while the hospital A&E silts up, unable to move patients to the medical wards.

There is therefore one immediate step that does not need a Commission to solve. The ICBs should treat social care with as much attention as health services and make it a priority that more capacity is available both in domiciliary and residential settings so that individuals can be moved on from hospital as fast as possible. We cannot continue with 13 per cent of hospital beds taken up by people fit for discharge but waiting for social care.

Other problems in my long list need long-term political courage and determination, because they cannot be addressed until the public is persuaded that if we want dignified living arrangements for those who need help, whether through long-term disability or age-related frailty, we all need to pay for it. Making this case has proved beyond Governments of all colours, which is one reason why the policy is regularly ejected into the thickest long grass available.

The other reason is that although increasing numbers of people either need or have family members who need care, there is still not widespread enough public anxiety to keep the care crisis in the headlines day after day. Too often the debate is simplified to the question of whether people will have to sell their homes or not. This is one key issue, but it is not the whole picture.

That need to keep the debate in the public mind, and focussed on the whole range of issues, is where I hope the Social Care Foundation can come in. We are a political neutral body which welcomes ideas from inside and outside the sector. On a personal level I do not approach this problem in a tribal way. If Wes Streeting does push through useful and long-lasting reforms I will be the first to welcome them.

I would emphasise that the reforms must be sustainable and realistic in the face of the demographic changes we know are happening. I suspect that simply taking the necessary extra money out of general taxation will not be acceptable, so we need to find a fair way of using a small proportion of people’s wealth for their own support if and when they need it.

There are several ways housing wealth can be used for this purpose. But the underlying political courage has to come in telling everyone that the care crisis cannot be solved without more money coming out of our pockets.

Damian Green, Chair Social Care Foundation