Guardian News and Media/London
More than 2,000 people have died of dehydration or malnutrition while in a care home or hospital in the last decade, according to figures published by the Office for National Statistics.
The figures show the “underlying cause of death” in 2,162 recorded cases since 2003 was dehydration or malnutrition. They do not include the death toll in 2013.
Campaigners said the figures were an “utter disgrace”. “How can we call ourselves civilised when people are left to starve or die of thirst? It is an utter disgrace that they are ever left without the most basic care,” Dr Alison Cook, a director at the Alzheimer’s Society, told the Daily Telegraph.
The figures were made public following a Freedom of Information request by the newspaper. The toll has improved only slightly since David Cameron became prime minister in 2010.
In the previous seven years, an average of 223 people died annually as a result of dehydration or malnutrition in a care home or hospital. From 2010 to 2012, that figure fell to slightly more than 200 per year.
The Daily Telegraph reported that Dot Gibson, general secretary of the National Pensioners Convention, said the care system needed an urgent overhaul. She said: “It is not good enough for ministers or the care regulator to talk about making improvements by 2015 when, in the meantime, older people are dying from neglect.
“The public would be outraged if animals were treated in the same way. We need to show the same compassion when it comes to caring for our elderly loved ones,” she added.
A spokesman for the Labour party told the paper that every elderly person “deserves the high standards of care that we would all want for our own mum or dad”.
“We will never get the care we aspire to from a social care system that has been stretched to the limit and cut to the bone,” he said.
