When the dust settles on the Keogh report published last week one figure is likely to linger: the “13,000 excess deaths” in the 14 NHS hospitals. It deserves careful scrutiny – and some has been applied by Isabel Hardman here with more details about this curious notion of “Hospital Standardised Mortality Rates” in the Health Service Journal here. But these still leave the question unanswered as to why these “extra” people are dying, and what, if anything, we can and should do about it. Here’s my attempt. It’s fairly detailed, and it’s still a lovely day so those who don’t have an appetite for such things may not want to click on the link. But those who do want to get their heads around this may find it interesting. The figure of 13,000 excess deaths was important enough to put on front pages of newspapers and quoted on the news bulletins, so it’s worth looking a little more at what it actually means.
Jonathan Portes
Analysis: what is meant by 13,000 ‘excess’ NHS deaths?

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