The Conservatives have challenged official data on patient deaths from malnutrition – put at 239 annually – after a recently released government report claimed the figure could be nearer 50,000.

The Daily Mail reports that end-of-year data from the ‘Nutrition Action Plan Delivery Board’ says 239 patients died from malnutrition in hospitals in England in 2007 – and, overall, 2,656 have died from malnutrition in both hospitals and care homes since 1997.

However, a government report that said the real number could be up to 200 times as many deaths was unveiled in August 2009 – and immediately caused a backlash among government ministers. It has now been published and says that statistics could be ‘misleading’:

'They represent less than 0.5 per cent of the number who died in hospital with malnutrition. We know that malnutrition predisposes to disease, it delays recovery from illness and it increases mortality.

'It follows that the effect of malnutrition on mortality rates is substantially greater than the number reported to have died because of malnutrition.'

The release of the report follows the recent inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, which found many patients were not given adequate food and drinks while in Stafford Hospital – and in some cases, not for days at a time.

Many families who contributed to the inquiry said that meals were placed out of the reach of patients or taken away before they had managed to finish them. Concerns have also been raised about the nutritional quality of meals served in hospitals, despite Labour’s attempts to improve standards.

Campaigners say that the elderly in particular are treated as ‘second class citizens’ on hospital wards. The British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition says that around 10 per cent of elderly people suffer from malnutrition.

Commenting on the findings of the report, Conservative Shadow Minister for Health Stephen O’Brien said:

'The government has sat on this devastating report since last summer – it is tragic to think that many more lives might have been saved if they hadn't deliberately delayed publishing it because of the embarrassment it causes them.

'It needs to free doctors and nurses from a culture of box-ticking and bureaucracy so that every patient can get the care they need in hospital.'

Health Minister Phil Hope responded by saying that malnutrition ‘does not necessarily contribute to or is a cause of an individual's death’.

'It completely misleads the public to compare the number of patients dying as a result of malnutrition with the number of people who have some degree of malnourishment, often as a result of ill-health,’ said Mr Hope.

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