Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how many recorded deaths were (1) residents of adult care homes, and (2) patients in NHS England hospitals, in each calendar month of 2020, up to and including August.

The information requested falls under the remit of the UK Statistics Authority. I have therefore asked the Authority to respond.

Dear Lord Warner,

As National Statistician and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, I am responding to your Parliamentary Questions asking how many recorded deaths were (i) residents of adult care homes, and (ii) patients in NHS England hospitals, in each calendar month of 2020, up to and including August (HL7908).

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is responsible for publishing mortality statistics for deaths registered in England and Wales. The most recent annual figures published are for deaths registered in 2019[1]. However, we do publish provisional weekly deaths registrations which are currently published for deaths registered up to 28 August 2020[2]. As part of this report, data is published by place of occurrence, which includes hospitals and places outside of hospitals, such as care homes.

Table 1 below provides the provisional number of deaths registered in care homes and hospitals by each calendar month of 2020, registered up to 28 August 2020, in England. The ‘Hospitals (acute or community, not psychiatric)’ figure includes deaths in NHS hospitals and private hospitals in England. Currently, the ONS does not publish age breakdowns of deaths registered in care homes. The figure includes children and adults, as some care homes may cater for adults as well as children. More detailed analysis on deaths, registered by place of occurrence, is available in our weekly report.

Table 1: Provisional number of deaths registered by place of occurrence, England, deaths registered between 1 January 2020 and 28 August 2020[3][4][5][6][7]

Source: ONS

Yours sincerely,

Professor Sir Ian Diamond

[1]https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregistrationsummarytables/2019

[2]https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/latest

[3]Based on date a death was registered rather than occurred.

[4]All figures for 2020 are provisional.

[5]Non-residents are excluded in the England totals.

[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.

[7]Care homes includes homes for the chronic sick; nursing homes; homes for people with mental health problems and non-NHS multi function sites.