Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his oral contribution of 10 January 2023 on Industrial Action, Official Report, column 439, for what reason he indicated that the Royal College of Emergency Medicine's data on excess deaths is inaccurate.

This is not an official National Health Service estimate but we share the Royal College of Emergency Medicine's concern about waiting times in the NHS. Excess deaths are the difference between the actual registered number of deaths and the expected deaths based on data for previous years. There are a range of different organisations producing different estimates based on different methodologies.

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities estimates of excess mortality published on 12 January 2023 use the trend in mortality rates from 2015 to 2019 to estimate expected deaths. They adjust for population growth and ageing. This provides further insight on the causes of death driving the excess mortality over 2022.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) weekly death reports compare the number of registered deaths each week with the average number of registrations in the equivalent week in the previous five years. ONS do not include 2020 in the data for the previous five years.