The Guardian reports taxpayers have spent close to half-a-billion pounds buying beds in England’s worst care homes over the past four years. 

An investigation by the Guardian has found that councils spent £480 million of taxpayers’ money in the past four years on beds for people in what it calls “the worst care homes in England”. It says some of the cash helped drive “profits for private investors while residents suffer unsafe treatment”. 

The Department of Health and Social Care tells the paper that nobody should receive sub-standard care and it expected local authorities and the Care Quality Commission “to hold failing providers to account”.