Death: Weather
(asked on 27th January 2025) - View Source
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask His Majesty's Government when the Office for National Statistics will publish their latest data on winter deaths; what criteria they will use to calculate them; and whether they have any plans to return to a static reporting date.
The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority.
Please see the letter attached from the National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority.
The Lord Sikka
House of Lords
London
SW1A 0PW
31 January 2025
Dear Lord Sikka,
As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Question asking when the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will publish their latest data on winter deaths; what criteria they will use to calculate them; and whether they have any plans to return to a static reporting date (HL4448).
The ONS previously published a regular release on winter mortality in England and Wales. However, following the recent consultation on health and social care statistical outputs[1], this release has been paused to enable a review of the methodology and timeliness of the statistics to be completed. Once the review is complete, a proposal on the future status of this output will be published.
The ONS does publish regular statistics on deaths registered each week[2] which may be of interest to you. This includes deaths registered over the winter period as well as estimates of excess deaths using the methodology that was implemented in February 2024[3].
Yours sincerely,
Professor Sir Ian Diamond