Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with local authorities on increasing social care capacity.

Officials and ministers from the Department of Health and Social Care and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities regularly meet with local authorities and their representatives to discuss social care capacity.

We have announced a £500 million discharge fund for this winter that can be used flexibly by local areas to speed up safe discharge and support workforce capacity. On 9 January, we announced an additional £200 million fund specifically for short term care, to allow local areas to buy thousands of extra beds in care homes and other settings and to invest flexibly in other forms of step-down bedded care.