Care providers are demanding double the usual fees to look after thousands of people who need to be discharged from hospitals to ease the crisis in the NHS.

Care England, which represents the largest private care home providers, said on Sunday it wanted the government to pay them £1,500 a week per person, citing the need to pay care workers more and hire rehabilitation specialists so people languishing in hospital can eventually be sent home.

The rate is about double what most local authorities currently pay for care home beds, an amount Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, described as “inadequate”.

The demand comes as the health secretary, Steve Barclay promised “urgent action” with up to £250m in new funding for the NHS to buy care beds to clear wards of medically fit patients. The money will be used to buy beds in care homes, hospices and hotels where people are looked after by homecare providers, as well as pay for hospital upgrades. Stays will be no longer than four weeks until the end of March.

A study commissioned by Age UK found that large swathes of the country were “care deserts” lacking residential care or nursing homes.

Caroline Abrahams, the charity’s director, said the research showed how “chaotic and broken” the market for care had become after years of underfunding. “If the awful situation set out in this report does not persuade our government to finally get a grip and take action, I don’t know what will,” Abrahams said.

The study, conducted by Incisive Health, an independent health consultancy firm, found that more than one in four postcode areas in England – 2,200 out of around 7,500 – had no residential care provision. Two-thirds (5,300) had no nursing homes, for people with more acute problems.

The report said more than 1.3 million over-65s lived in these areas and risked being unable to get support if they needed it.

The study found that a big driver of the problem was a lack of staff. Vacancy rates for nurses in social care rose to 12.3% in 2017/18. The report said staffing was a particular problem in the south-east, and that high numbers of EU staff in the sector, many of whom have left or are planning to leave, could mean extra disruption from Brexit.

In Nico’s case, East Sussex county council now covers only half of the cost of the support he needs; his school has to pay for the remainder or disrupt his education. “Rather than funding his care according to his education, health and care plan, the local authority is funding his care according to their own matrix, saying that’s the maximum funding you can get for that type of disability,” said Heugh.

She is a member of SEND Action, a national network of families committed to upholding their legal rights. “I am able to fight for my son but there are many parents who are not able to. Their children are not receiving the correct level of provision at school, or are being excluded altogether and losing their education. It’s frustrating, because children with SEND are capable of achieving so much with the right kind of support. I know my son is.”

In December the education watchdog Ofsted said education provision for children with SEND was “disjointed” and “inconsistent”, and that in 2018 more than 2,000 of the most needy pupils missed out on the support to which they were entitled – a number that has tripled since 2010.

The school leaders’ union NAHT has reported that only 2% of headteachers feel they receive sufficient funding for pupils with SEND.

Irwin Mitchell will argue that the government has been acting unlawfully since the 2014 Children and Families Act extended special education needs provision from 18 to 25 years, increasing the numbers entitled to funding. “We couldn’t find any evidence that the funding had increased,” said solicitor Anne-Marie Irwin. “Public bodies are required to act in a rational manner. It’s irrational to include in the act a whole raft of new [people] who need support, and not allocate money to fund that.”

A report last December by the Local Government Association showed that demand for services for children and young people with SEND rose by 35% between 2014 and 2018, and that this academic year, 93 local authorities expect their spending on children with high needs will be underfunded to the tune of £287m. Increased post-16 responsibility was the single most commonly cited factor contributing to the growth in high needs spending by local authorities.

Not working while caring for someone who is sick or infirm leaves gaps in National Insurance payments, hitting your state pension.

In 2010 the Government launched Carer’s Credit to fill the gap.

However, more than 90% of those eligible for the credit in 2018 did not claim it, according to a Freedom of Information request by Quilter, the wealth adviser.

The Department for Work and Pensions estimates around 200,000 carers are eligible for the credit, but only 17,388 claimed it last year.

Jon Greer, of Quilter, said: “Unpaid carers save the UK £132bn a year. But they sometimes don’t even see themselves as carers or the extent of the sacrifice they are making.”

To receive Carer’s Credit you must be between 16 and state pension age and look after at least one person for a minimum of 20 hours a week.

Every few hours, Alexa, Amazon’s voice-activated virtual assistant, helps Scott Walker stay well. Walker’s cerebral palsy means he has poor coordination and movement, but since last spring Alexa has reminded him to take his medication, as well as automating other tasks around his home.

Previously, Walker, who works at Next, used light from his television to get into bed, but can now turn the room lights on and off with his voice. “I haven’t fallen since I’ve had this machine,” he says. “It’s feeling you are in control of your life. My father doesn’t have to worry I am taking my pills at the right time.”

An estimated five million UK households have a device that runs either Alexa or Google’s equivalent, according to the research firm Enders Analysis.

While most people use chatbots – software that recognises spoken or written natural language and responds in kind – to play music or get answers to questions, there’s increasing interest in people using them to take greater control of their lives. “It could stop a partner becoming a carer,” Walker points out.

‘We’re going to the pub’: finding a way out of loneliness, one app at a time

Walker’s speaker, provided as part of a pilot run by Hampshire county council for 50 recipients of adult social care, does not replace regular visits from care workers to help with physical movement, but means he can do more for himself.

Many social care visits are brief calls to check on whether, for instance, someone has taken their pills. If chatbots can replace some of these shorter visits, it could mean care workers being able to spend longer on more useful visits.

Graham Allen, Hampshire’s director of adult health and care, says almost three quarters of those in the pilot felt the device helped improve their lives and almost as many felt it had improved their independence, with numbers fairly consistent across different ages. “It’s not a cure-all,” he says. “It needs to be used along with other measures.” But he can see potential for many care service users living at home, and the county’s children’s social services department has just started issuing similar devices.

The Fostering Network’s bleak State of the Nation report therefore came as no surprise, bar one comment: “a crisis is looming”. To those of us working as foster care workers, it is all too clear that this crisis is already here.

We established the foster care workers branch of Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) two-and-a-half years ago to provide a voice for foster carers, something we have never had before. One of our aims has been to provide foster carers with individual representation, which has put me in touch with carers across the country.

The story is the same everywhere. We are an exhausted, undervalued and disposable workforce. The system is simply not working. Not for us, and not for the children in our care. That’s why we launched our all-party parliamentary group on foster care work in Westminster. We recently presented the foster care workers bill, which we hope will bring a series of proposals into law. Now is the time for real solutions to this real crisis.

The solutions have come from our members. The message of the Fostering Network report was loud and clear: the majority of foster care workers are unhappy with their employment status. We are denied all employment rights because we are not legally recognised as workers.

Employment rights are badly needed by foster care workers, to support our children and ourselves. Without whistleblowing protection, we cannot challenge actions that we know are not in the interests of the children without fearing for ourselves. Without a minimum wage, many of us live on the edge of poverty, paying for extracurricular activities for children out of our savings. Without sick pay, carers often continue through serious illness.

Labour MP Jess Phillips takes aim at politicians considering imposing a £30,000 pay threshold for EU workers to be considered skilled, saying: ‘I have met many people who earn way more than £30,000 and have literally no discernible skills, not even one.’ The MP for Birmingham Yardley says the post-Brexit immigration proposal was ‘insulting’ to the care workers, nurses and teachers who live in her electorate. ‘I have definitely met some very rich people who earn huge amounts of money who I wouldn’t let hold my pint if I had to go and vote while in the bar,’ she says.