‘How would you like to be in this dump?’: families’ horror at privately run UK care homes

John O’Brien stayed in an Essex care home. His daughter described elements of his care as ‘utterly disgusting’. He died in February aged 79. Photograph: Family

After watching his girlfriend suffer in a dementia home so poor that it faced possible closure, Donald Hedges reached a simple conclusion: “It’s a robbery of taxpayers’ money.”

As it does for about a quarter of a million others in England, the state paid for Lilian Williams’ care. She lived in the privately owned Forest Edge care home in Southampton.