Campaigners staged a protest against a planned increase in home care charges in Wirral. Scores of disabled and elderly people made the journey to Birkenhead Park’s pavillion to voice their anger.

More than 100,000 people in Britain suffering from dementia are being prescribed drugs by doctors and care homes that at best offer few benefits and at worst are lethal, according to shocking new research.

{mosimage}The controversial drugs, which are often used to sedate patients, have been described as a “liquid cosh” by one expert and the study has provoked a call for stricter limitations on their use.

Professor Clive Ballard from King’s College, London, investigated the effects of anti-psychotic medication, which is given to nearly half of dementia patients in care homes at an annual cost of £80million. He found that those who had been given it were nearly twice as likely, over a four-year period, to die than those who were not prescribed it.

Professor Ballard said: “People who weren’t taking the anti-psychotic drugs had a 62 per cent chance of being alive by the end of the study while the people who were taking the drugs had only a 36 per cent chance of being alive.

“For the vast majority of people there are no benefits, and considerable harm, from using these drugs. There were clearly deteriorations in some of the core symptoms, particularly their ability to communicate effectively.”

Many elderly people only mildly affected by dementia but prescribed anti-psychotic drugs are reduced to a “zombified” state by them, says the Alzheimer’s Society, which has demanded an end to their blanket use.

Vulnerable disabled people in NHS care homes in East Lancashire were the victims of “disturbing and systematic” abuse by carers, a shock report has found.

Hundreds of criminals, including those accused of sexual offences, have avoided prosecution after a “cover-up” in magistrates’ courts, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.