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Councils and health bodies will be encouraged to integrate workforce planning under the proposals. This will be linked to service and budgetary planning across health and social care.

Skills for Care chief executive Andrea Rowe said joint workforce planning was already common in some areas, particularly eastern England, but the "variability" in the attitude of primary care trusts had been an obstacle in others.

She said the government might need to introduce a duty to co-operate on workforce planning to make the proposals workable.

Rowe welcomed plans to widen the sector's recruitment efforts, and said social care had been successful in attracting more young people.

But she said the white paper focused too much on end-of-life care and that more support was  needed for younger adults with disabilities.