Taxpayers have paid more than half a million pounds for empty beds at a new care home.

The government-owned but privately-operated Salisbury Street care home in Douglas opened in May last year - and was heralded as a way of tackling ’bed blocking’ at Noble’s Hospital.

As part of the contract awarded to Adorn Domiciliary Care, 40 of the 68 beds were to be made available to those who are solely reliant on state benefits to fund their nursing care costs.

And yet the taxpayer still pays £812.10 a week per bed, whether they are full or not.

In a written reply to a House of Keys question this week from former Health Minister Kate Beecroft, it was revealed that the cost of empty beds at the home between June and October this year was £40,925.

Figures released in Tynwald and the House of Keys earlier this year revealed that the total cost of the empty beds from the start of the contract until the end of September 2017 was £360,573, and £161,238 between October 2017 and the end of May this year.

That makes a total cost of £562,736.

Adorn managing director Dave Murray told Isle of Man Newspapers in March that he believed taxpayers’ money had been mismanaged.

He claimed the Department of Health and Social Care over-estimated demand for beds and that the government never needed to buy the facility for £7.9m in the first place.

But the DHSC says, to break even, it requires average occupancy at Salisbury Street to be at 75% over the term of the five year agreement with the operator Adorn Domiciliary Care.

And the occupancy rate has risen. It had average 85% between October last year and May but between June and October this year has ranged between 90% and 100%.

Health Minister David Ashford has previously told Tynwald that it is inevitable that it takes some time for a care home to become fully occupied, because minimum standards require admissions to be carefully planned and managed.