ALMOST 100 people die in poverty in Redditch every year, according to estimates published for the first time.

End-of-life charity Marie Curie said it was "shocking" that more than 90,000 people across the UK pass away while living in poverty annually and called for urgent action from the Government.

The estimates suggest that 96 people in Redditch died in 2019 having experienced poverty in the last year of their life – around 14 per cent of the total number of deaths in the area.

They were among 8,215 annual deaths in poverty across the West Midlands and almost 93,000 throughout the whole of the UK.

For most of the findings, the Social Metrics Commission's definition of poverty was used which examines how much someone’s resources, after housing costs, meet their needs – including "inescapable costs" such as childcare and disability.

Juliet Stone, from the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University, said the cost of living is high and rising, making the physical and financial challenges for people with terminal illnesses even tougher.

She said: "The number of people dying in poverty has almost certainly risen even further since the period covered by our research and will only get higher in the coming months as the cost of living crisis deepens.”

Of the 96 deaths in poverty in Redditch in 2019, 66 are estimated to be pensioners and 30 are of working age.

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said: “The government is taking decisive action to ease pressures on the cost of living, including spending £22 billion across the next financial year to support people with energy bills and cut fuel duty, and our £1 billion Household Support Fund is helping the most vulnerable with essential costs.