Cuts signal the end of the road for meals on wheels for 75% of old people

They showed that by next spring vulnerable old people across three-quarters of the country will have lost the chance of having hot meals delivered to their home.

Only the very sick and most disabled will get meals or other vital help at home with dressing, washing, cleaning and shopping.

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The figures obtained from Whitehall by the learning disability charity Mencap showed that by next spring only a quarter of council social services departments will continue to distribute meals to elderly people unless their needs are assessed as "substantial" or "critical".

That means that across 75 per cent of the country home help will be denied to those with "moderate" needs, defined as "unable to carry out several personal care or domestic routines".

Mencap said people who fall into the "moderate" category are usually unable to get out of the house by themselves, and face great difficulty cooking meals, washing, dressing or carrying out other everyday tasks.

The figures, gathered by the Government care watchdog the Commission for Social Care Inspection, showed that at the beginning of this year 47 per cent of social services departments were providing home help to those with moderate needs.

Next spring that will have fallen to 27 per cent.

Three councils, Northumberland, West Berkshire and Wokingham, have withdrawn meals and help for all but those with "critical" needs, defined as "life is in danger".

The Daily Mail's Dignity for the Elderly campaign has highlighted the way home help has been stripped away - often forcing older people to move to care homes.

Charities said yesterday that the withdrawal of home help by social services departments means the end of the meals on wheels system that was pioneered in Britain and later copied around the world.

Kate Jopling of Help the Aged said: "We have been seeing the end of meals on wheels for some time.

"In many places it has been reduced to some chap coming round on Monday morning and leaving seven frozen meals for the week.

"The lady with the trolley has been gone for some time."

She added: "Services at home are being withdrawn from those with real difficulties.

"They are now being told they will have to be seriously ill before they can get help.

"This is a picture of national rot in the way we look after the elderly and vulnerable."

Dame Jo Williams of Mencap - which is protesting over the way help is being withdrawn from those with learning difficulties as well as the elderly - said: "These figures show the true extent of the crisis in social care.

"It is unacceptable that in the UK in the 21st century local authorities are refusing support to very vulnerable people."

Tory health spokesman Stephen O'Brien expressed his 'outrage' at the latest cutbacks.

The Local Government Association, which represents local councils, said: "People who have critical or substantial needs will still get meals.

"It isn't the end of meals on wheels.' But its spokesman added: 'It could be the start of the end."

The first meals on wheels were provided during the Second World War to old people bombed out of their homes.

Local councils took up the idea as the welfare state was created by the Labour government of the late 1940s.

Countries around the world - notably America, Canada and Australia - adopted the idea.