THE region’s councils will help run NHS services to try to tackle a growing social care crisis, under new Labour plans.

Ed Miliband backed a blueprint to create “pooled budgets” for the elderly, the disabled and people with long-term conditions including asthma, diabetes, stroke and mental health.

The idea follows rising alarm that social care is on the brink of collapse, with cash-starved councils unable to meet rising demand from an ageing population.

Earlier this year it was revealed that 45,000 elderly and disabled people across the North-East and Yorkshire have “lost” their council-funded care in just three years.

Authorities are being forced to “ration” care, an investigation found - even to people who need help to “to get up, get washed, and get dressed and get out of the house”

Now a report by Labour council leaders – including Durham’s Simon Henig – has argued that pooling health and social care budgets is the “only realistic hope” of averting the crisis.

A “whole person care commissioning plan” will be drawn up jointly by councils, hospital trusts and GPs for each person needing long-term care.

Asked if the plan could rescue social care, Mr Henig said: “It will make a start, because trials show there can be impressive savings by coming together better.”

However, the idea falls short of councils gaining sole control of NHS funding – a proposal vetoed by Mr Miliband, after health spokesman Andy Burnham put it forward.

The study, entitled ‘People Powered Public Services’, also calls for:

* Five-year funding settlements for councils – which would be allowed, to keep, and reinvest, any savings made.

* Groups of councils to take responsibility for post-16 further education services in their areas.

* Council-run Policing Boards to appoint and dismiss chief constables – replacing elected police and crime commissioners (PCCs), which Labour has all-but said it will scrap.

* Councils to also retain a proportion of the police precept to “commission local policing” to curb anti-social behaviour, shoplifting and burglary.

* Councils to appoint new Directors of Schools Standards, to oversee all schools, including academies – something Labour has already pledged to bring in.

Mr Henig said: “England is the most centralised country in the Western world, so the most important thing is to decentralise decision-making.

“I hope that, when Labour wins the election, our recommendations will be put into practice by Mr Miliband and his launching the report is not just words.”

Mr Miliband backed the package, but said councils would be required to properly scrutinize spending and publish ‘league tables’ to reveal service quality.

The Labour leader said: “I will not hand over billions of pounds to local authorities without also insisting on a new system of checks and balances.”