Ed Miliband has set out Labour's "10-year plan" for the NHS including longer home visits by social care workers as the parties step up their campaigning 100 days before the general election.
The Labour leader has pledged new safety checks to identify people at risk of hospitalisation and to recruit 5,000 new home care workers.
Meanwhile David Cameron has been outlining plans to cut the benefits cap to pay for more apprenticeships.
The cap "encouraged work", he said.
In a BBC interview, Prime Minister David Cameron also hinted that pensioner benefits may continue to be protected from further welfare savings mooted for after the election.
All of the major parties have pledged what they say is enough money to maintain NHS services in the next Parliament after the general election.
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Ed Miliband said there were were "huge savings" to be made with Labour's plan
The Conservatives say they would ring-fence and "protect" the NHS budget while the Liberal Democrats have promised to meet "in full" the £8bn extra NHS managers say is needed by 2020 and UKIP has said it would commit an extra £3bn a year to the service.
'Perilous moment'Labour has promised to keep the NHS ring-fence and spend an extra £2.5bn a year across the UK by the end of the next Parliament.
In a speech in Trafford, Greater Manchester on Tuesday, Mr Miliband said David Cameron had "totally betrayed" promises made on the NHS before the last election and "the country's most precious institution faced its most perilous moment in a generation".
"David Cameron says he cares about the NHS but that is not enough. What tuition fees is for Nick Clegg, the NHS has become for David Cameron.
"It has become a question of trust."
Under a Labour government, Mr Miliband said 5,000 extra home care workers would be recruited to treat terminally ill people in their own beds and spelt out financial incentives for social care workers to spend more than 15 minutes on home visits.
Limiting visits to 15 minutes was "a symbol of what has gone wrong in the NHS where failure and false economies threaten the financial future of the service", he said.
Promising to tackle what he said was an "iron curtain" between social care and the NHS, he said care workers often had to choose between preparing a meal for people they were visiting or taking them to the toilet because of time constraints.
"We have got to join up services at every stage for home to hospital so people can get the care they need when they need it," he said.
The party, which has already announced plans to recruit 20,000 more nurses and provide cancer tests and results within a week, is putting the NHS at the heart of its campaign.
In response, Mr Cameron attacked Labour's record of running the health service in Wales, saying waiting lists had gone up and problems at A&E had multiplied.
"I think we need to look at Labour's record rather than its rhetoric," he said.
"I'm satisfied that we are putting the money into the NHS. Yes, we need to do better on A&E, but let's not forget that.... we have almost abolished mixed-sex wards, hospital-acquired infections are down by more than half, we are treating something like six million more outpatients every year and we have a cancer drugs fund for the first time in our country that is getting those drugs to the people who need them."
Benefit plansMr Cameron is focusing on the economy on Tuesday, promising a law to reduce the annual household welfare cap to £23,000 from the current £26,000 in the first week of a Conservative government.
Mr Cameron told the BBC that reforming the welfare system was the "best way to tackle poverty and spread advantage".
He said: "The criticism of our benefit cap, which was set at £26,000, in many parts of the country was that it was too high.
"So we think that reducing it to £23,000 will help to get more families back into work and we'll use the savings from that money to make sure we train three million apprentices in the next Parliament."
The Lib Dems launched an online advertisement, based on a Conservative election poster, arguing they would cut less than the Tories and borrow less than Labour.
"Britain needs a liberal voice in government, keeping the country on track, and stopping Labour and the Conservatives from lurching to the extremes of left and right," the party's leader Nick Clegg said.
Do you, or a family member, rely on social care visits? What impact do you think longer social care visits will have? You can share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.
If you would be happy to speak further to a BBC journalist, please include a contact telephone number.
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