Pensioners 'passed like parcels' by care agencies "Opportunities to provide necessary help are not taken and the condition of individual patients deteriorates in many cases where this did not need to happen," the report states. While the Government appears "signed up" to the idea of integrating health and social care, there has been little action so far, the committee says. The MPs urge ministers to address underfunding of care services, and warn that failure to do so is leading to a "diminished quality of life for elderly people" and increased pressure on the NHS. The Government has committed to providing an additional £20 billion a year for social care by 2015, but the MPs say this is "not sufficient to maintain adequate levels of service quality and efficiency." "Pursuing the 'salami slicing' of services, coupled with a failure to improve quality and efficiency through integration, will have very serious consequences for standards in both health and social care," the report concludes. Stephen Dorrell, Conservative chairman of the committee, said: "It is impossible to deliver either high quality or efficient services when the patient is passed like a parcel from one part of the system to another, without any serious attempt to look at their needs in the round. This obvious truth has often been repeated, but seldom acted upon. Mr Dilnot told The Daily Telegraph last night that the social system was approaching "crisis point." It should feel like a triumph of human civilisation that we are living longer, but because we haven't got the system right we see more and more people very vulnerable, he said. We need a wholly different structure, simply making minor changes to what we've got won't do it. Dot Gibson, the general secretary of the National Pensioners" Convention, said social care had become the "Cinderella" of the welfare state. "If this issue gets kicked into the political long grass again it will be a national scandal and a betrayal of millions of older people and their families who are currently struggling to cope with a complicated and expensive care system," she added.