The package is expected to include a £75,000 cap on the costs people pay for care and increase the threshold for means-tested support from £23,250 to £123,000, the BBC reports.

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt said the “scandal” of people having to sell their homes to pay for care must end. He said at present about 40,000 people a year are forced to sell family homes to pay unlimited care bills.

The report said it is hoped the insurance industry will start engaging with the issue and develop products to cover old-age care.

Hunt said: “Just as people make provisions for their pensions in their 20s and 30s, so we also need to be a country that prepares for social care as well.”

An inheritance ‘stealth tax’ is thought to form part of the plan.