Few entrepreneurs would cheerfully accept state control of the prices they charge, let alone call for it to be imposed. But then Dr Chai Patel is no conventional businessman – and these are desperate days for the social care sector in which he is a key player.

“I’d be very happy if the government wanted to have a price regulator, like we have in utilities, because this service is a public good, an essential public good,” says Patel, chairman and acting chief executive of HC-One, one of the leading care home chains. “Let’s have somebody tell us the fair margin that you should make in this sector and then see if we can, open-book, confirm that we’re doing that but no more than that.”