Nearly 30,000 older Britons died waiting for social care in the space of a year, damning figures have revealed. Analysis of NHS data showed that 28,665 people over the age of 65 died in 2022/23 while languishing on waiting lists. The figures lay bare the perilous state of the social care system.

Campaigners fear many of those begging for assistance spend their final weeks and months in distress and discomfort because council supply simply cannot meet demand.

Age UK analysed NHS data which shows 28,655 over-65s died waiting for social care in 2022-23 or 79 deaths a day.

The numbers are broadly similar to those from a year earlier, suggesting no progress.

Caroline Abrahams, Age UK charity director, said: “Good social care makes a big difference whenever it is needed, but never more so than in the last weeks and months of our lives.

The figures are emblematic of the now chronic systemic problems within social care.”

And, she added; “Until we get a Government that’s prepared to face up to these problems, older people will continue to go to their graves without receiving the social care they are due.”

The Department of Health & Social Care said its ‘sympathies are with families of those who have died’, adding that it has given £8.6bn of extra funding over two years to support adult social care.