Campaigners for elderly care charity AgeUK have called for the government to protect the social care budget the same way as NHS spending, reports BBC news.

The charity argues that funds for social care jobs and services need to protected in the same manner as NHS funding has been if the British population is to have adequate access to care and support services. It warns that if cuts are made as expected to local authority funding, only half of the one million people who need help at home in England will be able to afford it by 2012.

Age UK's figures come from the London School of Economics and the University of Kent. The two research bodies were commissioned by the charity to look at how spending cuts could affect social care ahead of last month's emergency budget.

Using projections of £900m cuts to the social care budget over the next two years and a rising demand from the ageing population, the research indicated that the number of people excluded from care could rise significantly.

Age UK's director of policy, Andrew Harrop, said that protecting healthcare spending whilst slashing social care budgets "just does not seem to make sense."

"The two are so closely related," said Harrop. "If you cut social care it has an impact on the NHS through an increase in emergency admissions and things like that. It just does not seem to make sense and is not fair. A rise might not be realistic but at the very least some sort of protection is essential."