Lib Dem health spokesperson Daisy Cooper MP has said the use of private brokers to find care homes for hospital discharges is a “scandalous situation”.

Cooper’s comments come after The Guardian reported private brokers were earning millions finding care home beds for the NHS and local authorities.

She said: “This is a scandalous situation. Once again, tax-payers are left picking up an eye-watering tab for Tory incompetence.

“The Conservative government’s failure to plan has left the NHS and local authorities with no choice but to turn to the private brokers for even the most basic of functions.

“This is a direct result of the Conservative’s legacy of running the NHS into the ground, failing to recruit the staff we need, and being so caught up in their own leadership elections that they failed to prepare for the winter crisis.

“Liberal Democrats are fighting for a healthcare system that is accessible to all. The government needs to get discharge funding to the frontline in the next 72 hours, put an end to undignified corridor care and stop the hundreds of preventable deaths happening every week.”

Rory Deighton, director of the acute network at the NHS Confederation, said: “Health leaders are doing all they can to ensure that the 14,000 medically fit patients that are currently ready to leave hospital can move out and into the most appropriate setting as soon as possible.

“However, this is set against a workforce crisis in social care with over 160,000 vacancies, coupled with over 130,000 vacancies in the NHS. While using third parties to help co-ordinate people moving out of hospital and into the most appropriate social care setting may not be appropriate in every case, it is one of a number of solutions available to NHS organisations, local authorities and patients in moving people out of hospital as quickly as possible. It is also a solution that has helped reduce the backlog of people waiting and can offer value for money.  The government must now urgently address the ongoing challenges in both the NHS and in social care to ease pressures this winter and ensure that current issues are not repeated in years to come.”

Carehome Selection is among the private brokers to gaining local authority contracts to find step-down beds.

A spokesperson for the company told The Guardian it “commits to and is paid based upon performance-based outcomes centred on accelerating speed of hospital discharge”, adding its services saved money and speeded up the process.

Leeds City Council among the local authorities outsourcing brokerage services to Carehome Selection.

A spokesperson for the council said it was “trialling a new brokerage service which supports the admission of people into residential care, thereby reducing the administrative burden on social workers and increasing the pace of discharge”.

The council added: “The council has an attraction and recruitment strategy in place which is seeing an increase in permanent staff coming to work in Leeds and is also developing its own brokerage service.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The purpose of the £500m discharge fund is to reduce the number of delayed discharges and reduce the number of bed days lost to delayed discharge. We are empowering local areas to find the most effective way of doing that.

“We are investing an additional £200 million to get medically fit patients out of hospital quicker and boost the social care workforce, on top of the £500 million discharge fund, and putting £50 million towards expanding capacity in emergency departments through new discharge lounges and ambulance hubs.

“It is for NHS Trusts and local authorities to decide whether to access support from the private sector in improving flow through the health and social care system, and bodies such as the Care Quality Commission regulate the private sector where they are delivering care.”