Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent discussions (a) his Department and (b) NHS England have had on the exclusion of indicators measuring over 75 mortality rates in the NHS Outcomes Framework.

It is not the case that indicators measuring the mortality rates of over 75s are excluded in the NHS Outcomes Framework. An overarching indicator in Domain 1, ‘Life Expectancy at 75’, is derived from mortality rates for people aged over 75 from all causes. This indicator captures premature mortality in a way that does not presume any age-determined limit to when a death is premature.

The cause-specific mortality rate indicators are capped at age 75 because the attribution of the cause of death is more problematic for older people, who often have co-morbidities. Therefore, these indicators could become misleading if they included those aged 75 and above.

However, the Department will keep under review outcome measures for older people as part of the next refresh of the NHS Outcomes Framework.