About 178,000 people with learning difficulties may lose their home help as a result of the crisis

Dozens of learning disability charities face insolvency within weeks after HM Revenue & Customs demanded six years of back pay for home helps.

About 178,000 people with learning difficulties may lose their assistance at home because of changes to pay rates for 24-hour care.

About 200 organisations including Mencap must find an extra £400 million for historical pay demands after the government changed the guidance on the minimum wage last autumn.

Charities have been desperately seeking meetings with ministers, warning that the sector will “implode in months”. But they say senior government officials have not found time in their diaries because they are distracted by Brexit and internal feuding.

A large proportion of the care under threat is given 24 hours a day, seven days