In an exclusive interview with Caring Times, care minister Helen Whately explains how the government will be allocating a £40 million social care top-up fund to areas facing greater pressures in urgent and emergency care this winter.

The funding, which came alongside £200 million announced for the NHS today, followed a Winter Roundtable with health leaders hosted by health and social care secretary Steve Barclay and PM Rishi Sunak yesterday.

Whately said: “What we are announcing today on the social care side is a very specific, targeted top-up fund particularly for areas that are facing greater pressures in urgent and emergency care.”

The extra funding is open to 55 local authorities where there is greater need who will decide where it can be used most effectively to create extra capacity in social care services.

Whately said the government would be setting out which local authorities will be allocated funding in the “next few days and weeks”.

The care minister said she was not going to be dictate on what services the spending should be allocated, adding: “We have given the steer on some of the things we want to see happening but we will leave the discretion to local authorities to know best what is needed in their areas.”

Whately added it was “really important” that local authorities and Integrated Care Boards work closely with providers to determine where the funding is most effectively spent.

She cited her push for local authorities to commission care in advance from providers so that they know what staffing numbers they will need as a way she has listened to social care in developing policy.

The minister added early commissioning was a key component in helping fill the 152,000 social care vacancies which remain a major obstacle to providers being able to take on extra capacity this winter.

“I have said to local authorities they can make providers better employers by commissioning care more in advance so they can give providers more confidence about the hours they are going to have,” she said. “This will also give carers more certainty about the hours they are going to have if they are weighing up whether they are going to work in a different sector this winter when there may be more work in retail, for example.”

The minister said she wanted providers “to be in a position to give their care workers a really good offer to stick with social care through the winter”.

The extra funding was welcomed by social care and health leaders.

Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, stressed the importance of “true collaboration and partnership with care providers” on effectively allocating resources.

He added: “Integrated Care System and local authority leaders must work pragmatically with care providers to determine how this funding will best serve to improve outcomes.”

Director of policy and strategy at NHS Providers, Miriam Deakin, said: “The £40 million for local authorities to boost social care capacity, reduce admissions and to tackle delayed discharges will be welcomed but the government must also take a long, hard look at the fundamental long-term challenges facing social care rather than trying to get by through short-term quick fixes.”