Pensioners are dying faster than they are signing on for the government's new pension credit.

The Department for Work and Pensions said on Wednesday that 33,000 households, or 40,000 individual pensioners, successfully applied for pension credit in July.

But about 42,000 people aged 65 or more die each month in Britain, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Mervyn Kohler of the charity Help The Aged said: "Many people who could claim are unaware that pension credit exists, partly because the government keeps changing its name.

"It used to be called income support and then the minimum income guarantee. Instead of means-testing, what we need is an adequate basic state pension available to all."