Something’s fishy about the ONS’S excess death figures

There was a clear need to improve the estimates at the height of the pandemic. Why only do it now?

The Office for National Statistics has revised its estimate of the number of excess deaths in the UK last year. At 10,994, the new number is two-thirds lower than the previous figure of 31,442. Excess deaths in the first year of the pandemic have also been revised down, from 84,064 to 76,412.

The revised method accounts for population size and ageing trends as opposed to the previous method, which used a five-year average to estimate the number of expected deaths in a year. This new approach is fine and long overdue. Indeed, in the pandemic we were concerned with the use of historical averages in estimating excess deaths, particularly as it tended to underestimate how many deaths should be expected in a particular year. The ONS’S estimates of excess deaths at the height of the pandemic were therefore likely to have been higher than they should have been, helping to drive the fear and panic that led to the UK being plunged into a series of deeply restrictive lockdowns.

So it is clearly good that the ONS has acted to improve the quality of its data. But there are signs that further improvements could still be made. While the difference in the total number of recorded deaths between 2020 and 2023 is 27,629, for example, the difference in excess deaths between these years is more than double at 65,418, suggesting that something is amiss with the new estimates.

Meanwhile, the ONS reports that the differences between the old figures and those generated by the new methodology have “generally” been accounted for by trends in population size, ageing and mortality rates. But that isn’t true for all years. In 2022 and 2023, by far the biggest contributors to the changed figures are lumped together under the category of “other changes”. Quite what’s in this bucket of changes isn’t totally clear, although some of it is to do with the treatment of 2020 data.

Perhaps the most pressing question, however, is why we are only now seeing a serious attempt made to better understand excess deaths. In 2020, these figures were one of the main drivers of lockdown. Where was the urgent need to fix the data then?

We don’t pretend to understand the ONS’S overview of the change to its methods. Given what we know of the problems in Government decisionmaking, the British public is entitled to a better explanation for the change in methods and its impact. Only a clear explanation will exorcise the ghost of misgovernment.

Other estimates for excess deaths last year remain substantially higher than those produced by the ONS’S new method, and until it is fully understood why, questions will remain outstanding. What are we now meant to believe?

As always, we can trust the evidence. And what we can see in the data is that, since the pandemic, deaths have remained high in all three of the ensuing years – above 650,000 annually across the UK. Compare this with 2011, when just over 550,000 deaths occurred. Changes to the size, age or gender of the population seem unlikely to explain an increase in 100,000 deaths over this period.

It is clear to us that something is not right; while we do not fully understand the ONS’S new model, there have been more deaths than expected since the pandemic.

Last year, the British Heart Foundation reported that, since the onset of the pandemic, “as of June 2023, there have been nearly 100,000 excess deaths in England involving [ischaemic heart disease] or other cardiovascular diseases”. The number of premature deaths from heart disease soared to a 14-year high in the wake of Covid.

Yet the Government appears to lack any appetite for investigating the root causes. In May last year, Esther Mcvey MP submitted a written question in Parliament, asking the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care if his Department would conduct an investigation into excess deaths.

Back came the response: there were “no plans” to commission such an investigation. Instead, it ran for cover behind the usual waffle of “high flu prevalence” and ongoing Covid “challenges”. In the meantime, we are left with a confusing and complex system for reporting and analysing excess deaths, and a deep sense of doubt as to whether the true numbers and causes will ever be investigated.