A shocking 345 non-Covid patients died of thirst in hospitals and care homes during the first lockdown. That is a 48 per cent increase on the previous five-year average of 232 deaths from dehydration over the same timescale.
The figures were compiled by the UK Statistics Authority from a six-month study of non-Covid deaths between January and early July.
And they show that lack of water became the invisible killer during the darkest days of the pandemic, when care services broke down.
Care workers could not visit as they either could not obtain adequate PPE or were isolating themselves. Nurse Lesley Carter, of Age UK, said: “It was an horrendous 12 weeks.