A new funding system that spells out clearly what patients get for free and what they pay for in health and social care must be created after the general election, the president of the organisation that represents social services directors said on Thursday.

Jenny Owen, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Service, warned Labour and Conservative politicians that their recent piecemeal proposals – for free personal care at home from Labour and for an insurance scheme to cover care home fees from the Conservatives – risk “seriously destabilising an already fragile health and social care system, or of creating perverse incentives”.