Charities say families with elderly relatives in local authority care homes in England are struggling to meet demands for top-up fees.

Age Concern and Help the Aged say councils are paying about £60 a week less than it takes to provide services, forcing families to meet the shortfall.

Care Services Minister Phil Hope told the BBC the situation was "distressing" and "shouldn't be happening".

But the Local Government Association said Westminster must increase funding.

'No limitless pot'

Age Concern and Help the Aged said some relatives were being asked to contribute several hundred pounds a month in top-up care fees.

"As local authority budgets come under tighter pressure, it's definitely something we anticipate getting worse unless government ministers get together with local authority leaders and thrash something out here," spokesman Patrick South told the BBC.

One relative, Jean Cutts, told the BBC about her struggle to pay nearly £300 a month for her 97-year-old mother's council-run home.

"It's hit us critically," she said. "Whatever money comes into the bank is drained out every month."
   
We have to radically change our system of care for the future
Care Services Minister Phil Hope

The National Care Association, which represents care homes, said they were being asked to provide a far greater range of services because people with complex medical needs who would previously have been cared for in hospital were now looked after in the community.

And David Rogers, from the Local Government Association, said that this wider remit, combined with an ageing population, presented a huge challenge for councils who did not have a "limitless pot of money".

'National care service'

Mr Hope said half a billion pounds extra had been allocated to fund care and it was "up to local authorities to make sure that they meet the assessed care needs that an individual has".

However, he did acknowledge that "we have to radically change our system of care for the future".

To do this, he said, the government was proposing a national care service "where everybody no matter what their income will get some help with their care and support".

The top-up fees row comes as Health Secretary Andy Burnham is set to speak about the healthcare "timebomb" facing Britain's ageing population.

In a speech on Friday, he will say that the current system is "creaking at the seams and can't cope", and will call on public and health professionals to give their opinions on how it should be reformed.

The Department of Health has launched a public consultation exercise - the Big Care Debate - to get people's views on how care and support should be funded and provided in the future.