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Labour's Debbie Abrahams has revealed heartrending cases which show the damning failure of social care.

The Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary told of meeting a woman in her 70s while out campaigning.

Ms Abrahams, MP for Oldham since 2011, said: “I knocked on this woman’s door. She was on her own, in her nightclothes and was holding one of those bubble-packs of medication.

“And she just said to me: ‘I don’t know what I have to do’.

“My mum had Alzheimer’s and I can recognise the early stages of dementia.

“This woman was alone, helpless and clearly in need of care. It is shocking. She needed someone to be there and there was no one. This isn’t how older people should be treated.”

Ms Abrahams revealed the case as she warned that vulnerable people are slipping through the net.

(Image: Getty)

She told us of a constituent in his 60s who, despite having a brain tumour, had benefits stopped “for not looking for work in the appropriate way”.

As a result, the man then refused an operation because time spent in hosptial might harm his chances of future benefits. She said: “This man is having three or four epileptic fits a week, he needs a life-saving operation or he’s going to die.

“He’d been without money for three months. We managed to sort that out, but you have to ask: How could that happen?

“It’s inhumane. This is not how a civilised society treats people – especially the most vulnerable. We are picking up a lot of people being treated like this. But what happens to the people who don’t get in touch with us? It is frightening.”

Ms Abrahams said the Tories treat the elderly and vulnerable as “easy targets”.

She warned pension curbs and winter fuel allowance cuts are “the thin end of the wedge”, adding: “They could go after bus passes and TV licences as well.”