Silent health crisis causes 1000 deaths a week in UK

Experts say pandemic delays to treatment for cancer and heart disease are behind surge

Many did not get the help they needed. That has caused lasting damage.

Dr Charles Levinson, Doctorcall

Britain is in the grip of a silent health crisis. For 14 out of the past 15 weeks, England and Wales have averaged about 1000 extra deaths every week, none of which were from Covid.

If the current trajectory continues, the number of non-Covid excess deaths will soon outstrip deaths from coronavirus this year, and be even more deadly than the Omicron wave.

Experts believe decisions taken by the Government in the earliest stages of the pandemic may be coming back to bite.

Policies that kept people indoors, scared them away from hospitals, and deprived them of treatment and primary care are finally taking their toll.

Professor Robert Dingwall, of Nottingham Trent University, a government adviser during the pandemic, said: “The picture seems very consistent with what some of us were suggesting from the beginning.

“We are beginning to see the deaths that result from delay and deferment of treatment for other conditions, like cancer and heart disease, and from those associated with poverty and deprivation.

“These come through more slowly. If cancer is not treated promptly, patients don’t die immediately but do die in greater numbers more quickly than would otherwise be the case.”

The Government has admitted most of the excess deaths appear to be from circulatory issues and diabetes — long-term chronic conditions that can be fatal without adequate care.

Such conditions were also likely to have been exacerbated by lockdowns and work-from-home edicts that increased sedentary lifestyles and alcohol intake at a time when Britain was already facing historic levels of obesity and heart disease.

Dr Charles Levinson, chief executive of the private GP service Doctorcall, said: “People really, really struggled and so many did not get the help they needed. That has caused lasting damage.”

The National Health Service (NHS) is also battling to ease the pandemic treatment backlog, and missing targets across the board.

A record 29,317 patients were forced to endure 12-hour waits in Accident & Emergency in July, a rise of a third in a month. Twelve-hour A&E waits rose 33 per cent last month, with a record rise of 7283 — up from 22,034 a month earlier.

Heart attack or stroke patients in England waited more than half an hour longer for an ambulance t in July compared with before the pandemic, vital minutes which could prove fatal.

Dr Charmaine Griffiths, chief executive at the British Heart Foundation, said: “Right now, too many people with heart conditions are facing dangerously long waits for potentially life-saving cardiac care.”

There is frustration among health professionals that little is being done to highlight the excess death issue.

Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) at Oxford University, said that excess deaths began to increase noticeably from about the end of April, and had stayed high compared with the past seven years.

“The signals in the data suggest something is not quite right,” he said.

“Sustained rises in deaths should trigger an investigation that may involve accessing the raw data on death certificates, a random sample of medical notes or analysing autopsies.

“I feel there is a lack of clear thinking . . . when it comes to people’s health and wellbeing, you can’t wait, it’s unacceptable.”

Huge numbers of excess deaths appear to be happening at home, with 681 recorded in the latest release by the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday, 28.1 per cent above what would usually be expected.

Some experts think the excess deaths may be people whose health was weakened by a Covid infection, which is known to increase the risk of stroke and heart attacks.

Research has also shown that people who have recovered from Covid are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Dr Adam Jacobs, senior director of biostatistics at Premier Research, said: “It’s certainly possible that just allowing millions of people to be infected could have increased deaths from cardiovascular disease as an indirect effect of Covid.”

However, others believe the excess deaths are likely to be a complex response to government policies and restrictions to tackle the virus.

Dr Tom Jefferson, also of the CEBM at Oxford, added: “Clearly Covid is not really an issue anymore, and, instead, there appears to be an increase in cardiovascular events and diabetes which fits in with more sedentary lifestyles brought about by the pandemic restrictions.

“Increased alcohol and food intake, not exercising enough, stress, not getting treatment can all lead to strokes and heart attacks.

“Then you ring the ambulance and it doesn’t come.”

This week, the Department of Health and Social Care finally said it was concerned by the figures, and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities was analysing the excess deaths.