Liberal Democrats have called on government to avert the “looming care crisis”, claiming a lack of capacity is creating “winter pressures in the NHS all year round”, while constraints on social services budgets forced councils to “squeeze” care home fees.

The annual conference overwhelmingly backed a call on government to commission an independent assessment of the level of social services budgets, abolish charging for personal care, and invest in the expansion of preventive social care.

Liberal Democrat shadow minister for older people Paul Burstow said the party should be proud of its action in the Scottish Executive where plans for delivering free personal care to the elderly had been unveiled this week.

MSP Iain Smith told delegates not to believe health secretary Alan Milburn and chancellor Gordon Brown when they said free personal care was not affordable. “We’ve done it in Scotland,” he said. “The matter of principle is caring for our elderly and meeting the costs.”

Burstow criticised the way free nursing care had been dealt with in England: “Alan Milburn calls it free nursing care. It’s nothing of the sort. [He] has defined nursing care in the narrowest and meanest terms.”

Burstow also questioned the role of nurses as both providers and gatekeepers of free nursing care, hitting out at the “desktop analysis” which would comprise the assessment system. “There will be no face-to-face contact whatsoever,” he said. “It’s hard to look someone in the eye and tell them that they have to pay for their care – and nurses shouldn’t have to do that.”

Party member Ruth Berry captured much of the mood over the “scandalous” and “bureaucratic nonsense” of free nursing care. “It’s not a looming care crisis. It’s happening today,” she said. “It’s a blooming disaster and we must drive it away.”

The conference also called for government to value and raise the profile, pay and conditions of front-line care workers, as well as providing properly resourced training and development.