All elderly people in England will be eligible for free help with basic tasks such as getting out of bed, washing and feeding themselves under Labour plans for a national care service.

The pledge, which will cost £6bn a year in 2020/21, would more than double the number of people receiving state-funded support, Labour said. 

The opposition claimed it would also reduce the number of people facing “catastrophic costs” to pay for social care.

And the IPPR think-tank, which has previously advocated free personal care, said it could save the NHS £4.5bn a year.

The move would also create parity between cancer patients, who receive free care on the NHS, and those with dementia, who currently have to pay for their own care.

As part of the national care service, Labour has pledged to raise standards of care by ending the use of zero-hour contracts, ensuring that carers are paid a real living wage, including for travel time; ending 15-minute care visits; and improving access to training and development for care staff.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell will set out details of the plan in his speech at the Labour conference in Brighton on Monday.

“As the first building block in our new national care service the next Labour government will introduce personal care free at the point of use in England,” he will say.

“Funded not through the Conservatives’ gimmicky insurance schemes but, like the NHS and our other essentials, through general taxation.”

Currently, only people with low levels of savings receive publicly-funded personal care. 

Labour will set out details of any tax rises to pay for the universal policy in its general election manifesto.

The party said its plans would address the funding gap in social care and support councils to directly provide, rather than outsource, care provision. 

Tom Kibasi, director of the IPPR, said:  “We are delighted that the Labour Party has made this new commitment to making social care free at the point of need, just like the NHS. 

“This was a central recommendation from an expert and cross-party group convened by IPPR and led by former Labour minister Lord Darzi and former Tory minister Lord Prior, now chairman of NHS England.

“With an ageing society, free social care is the new common sense and vastly preferable to complex and unfair insurance schemes. It is right to end the care lottery and provide security and dignity in older age.”