Asked by: Baroness Stroud (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of deaths from (1) dehydration, (2) malnutrition, and (3) bed sores, in (a) care homes, and (b) hospitals, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answered by Lord True - Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have therefore asked the Authority to respond.
Dear Lady Stroud,
As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am replying to your Parliamentary Question regarding what estimate has been made of the number of deaths from (1) dehydration, (2) malnutrition, and (3) bed sores, in (a) care homes, and (b) hospitals, since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (HL10551).
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is responsible for publishing the number of deaths registered in England and Wales. The most recent set of final figures published are for deaths registered in 2019[1]. The final information on deaths registered in 2020 will be released in summer 2021.
As part of our provisional analysis for 2020 so far, we released an article, Analysis of death registrations not involving coronavirus (COVID-19), England and Wales: 28 December 2019 to 10 July 2020[2]. Table 1 shows the number of deaths in each week and the corresponding 5-year average for disorders of fluid electrolyte and acid-based balance (dehydration), malnutrition and nutritional anaemias. Information on bed sores, and breakdowns by care homes and hospitals, is not available.
Cause of death is defined using the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th edition (ICD-10).
Yours sincerely,
Professor Sir Ian Diamond
Table 1: Weekly provisional figures on Non-COVID-19 deaths due to disorders of fluid electrolyte and acid-based balance (dehydration), malnutrition and nutritional anaemias. England and Wales, weeks 1 to 28 combined[3][4][5][6][7][8][9]
| ICD-10 codes | Cause of death groups | Age group | Deaths |
2020 | E86–E87 | Disorders of fluid electrolyte and acid-based balance (dehydration) |
| 173 |
E86–E87 | Disorders of fluid electrolyte and acid-based balance (dehydration) | 65+ | 172 | |
5-year average | E86–E87 | Disorders of fluid electrolyte and acid-based balance (dehydration) |
| 103.4 |
E86–E87 | Disorders of fluid electrolyte and acid-based balance (dehydration) | 65+ | 128.8 | |
2020 | D50–D53, E40–E64 | Malnutrition and nutritional anaemias |
| 29 |
D50–D53, E40–E64 | Malnutrition and nutritional anaemias | 65+ | 75 | |
5-year average | D50–D53, E40–E64 | Malnutrition and nutritional anaemias |
| 20.8 |
D50–D53, E40–E64 | Malnutrition and nutritional anaemias | 65+ | 66 |
Source: ONS
[3] A non-COVID-19 death is a death where COVID-19 is not mentioned on the death certificate. The ICD 1 definitions for COVID-19 are UO7.1 and UO7.2.
[4] ‘Due to’ refers to when the condition was the underlying cause. An ‘underlying cause of death’ refers to the main cause of death.
[5] For deaths registered from 1 January 2020, cause of death is coded to the ICD-10 classification using MUSE 5.5 software. Previous years were coded to IRIS 4.2.3. Further information about the change in software is available on the ONS website: https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/causeofdeathcodinginmortalitystatisticssoftwarechangesjanuary2019
[6] These figures represent death registrations. There can be a delay between the date a death occurred and the date a death was registered. More information can be found in our ‘Impact of registration delays’ release: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/impactofregistrationdelaysonmortalitystatisticsinenglandandwales/2018
[7] All figures for 2020 are provisional.
[8] Figures include deaths of non-residents.
[9] Caution should be used when analysing conditions with low numbers of deaths as these can have high levels of year on year variation relative to the number of deaths.