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The number of people who are so malnourished they have to go to hospital has more than TRIPLED in the last ten years.

Labour said the shameful figures lay bare the true human cost of cuts in pay and ­benefits plus rising food prices.

Last year 8,417 patients were treated for malnutrition – compared with just 2,702 in 2008.

Of those admitted in 2017, 143 were under the age of nine and another 238 were aged between ten and 19.

In another shock statistic, the number of people in hospital with scurvy, from a lack of vitamin C, has doubled in the same period from 61 to 128 cases.

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The figures for hospitals in England by NHS Digital show just the tip of the ­iceberg as GPs have been treating ­thousands more for malnutrition without referring them to hospital.

Last night shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth, said: “It’s absolutely shameful that malnutrition and scurvy admissions to hospital have risen so ­dramatically after eight years of Tory rule.

“As the sixth largest economy in the world, surely we are better than this.

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“But this is the consequence of eight years of cuts to public services, the cost of living rising and falling real wages hacking away at the social fabric of our society.

“Labour in government will lead an all-out assault on the unacceptable health ­inequalities facing our society.”

Dianne Jeffrey, Chairman of The Malnutrition Taskforce, said: “I find these figures incredibly concerning. We already know up to 1.3 million of our older friends, relatives and neighbours are malnourished or at risk.”

Research by the Trussell Trust, Britain’s biggest food bank organiser, showed that one in five parents skipped meals to make sure their ­children were fed.

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More struggle to feed their families during the school holidays. The Food Foundation think tank ­calculates that four million people in Britain regularly go a day ­without meals.

The research put the UK below Hungary, Estonia and Malta in the ­bottom half of European countries suffering moderate levels of hunger.

Scurvy can strike if you go for months with a deficiency of vitamin C – found in fruit and veg. It was rife in Victorian times.