The Care & Support Alliance has developed an online tool which reveals key statistics about social care in each constituency in England.

Simply type in your postcode and find out how many older people, disabled people and carers live in your area to gain an idea of how crucial social care is to so many people.

We commissioned a YouGov survey which asked over 4,500 people across England what they thought about the state of care services for older and disabled people and how such support should be funded. You can take the survey and compare your results to other people in your area, of your age, or voting intention: www.careweneed.com

We launched the site at the political party conferences this autumn, where hundreds of MPs and other visitors engaged with the data on interactive screens at our exhibition stand.

The findings of our polling demonstrate that care is not just of crucial importance to hundreds of thousands of people, but a real election issue.

Chronic under-funding of social care over the last five years has led to a tightening of eligibility, which has seen fewer and fewer people getting the support they desperately need. Councils report that some £3.5bn has come out of the care system. In October, the Government published new national eligibility criteria for care under the Care Act reforms, which come into effect in April 2015. Research by the London School of Economics indicates that 340,000 people – who struggle to live independently – could be locked out of the new care system as a result of the changes.

Our polling
The YouGov poll we commissioned in September this year was one largest independent surveys of public attitudes to social care to date. The message from the public was loud and unanimous: people are not confident they will receive the care they might need and increased government expenditure on social care is their top priority along with health services. Check out the full findings here.