The government is expected to give the NHS a much bigger responsibility for social care, in plans to be announced this week. A paper is to be published by health secretary Andy Burnham on the future vision for the UK's health policy.

The Department of Health claims this will be the most radical change to the NHS in decades, as the proposal is thought to give the health service a much greater involvement in social care. The 'vision' for Labour's manifesto commitments on health policy, is said to emphasise the need for a closer integration of community services, social care and acute services.

Social care is currently provided by local authorities, which the Conservative mainly control. A move towards greater control of social care by the NHS has been described as one way to “rip the guts out of” Tory-controlled councils, by an NHS source.

NHS chief executive David Nicholson said in a speech to NHS medical directors: "We have got to think about how local government manages provision and whether we can integrate directly health and social care horizontally across the system. One of the bits of evidence we do know is that the real productivity gains, the real quality and productivity gains in the future, are at the interface of secondary and primary care, at the interface between NHS and social care, at the interface between empowered patient and the service."

Health Secretary Mr Burnham and the prime minister Gordon Brown, both agree that their intention is to set up a National Care Service to run alongside the 'much loved' NHS.