Britain experienced a record number of excess deaths last year amid repeated National Health Service (NHS) strikes, the most recorded in a non-pandemic year since World War II, British newspaper The Telegraph reported on Wednesday.
Excess deaths are increasing, meaning that last year in the UK about 53,000 more individuals died than normal, about 1000 extra deaths per week.
Last year, doctors went on strike for 38 days, which analysts believe contributed to the high number of unnecessary fatalities.
During the pandemic, there were an additional 82,000 and 60,000 fatalities in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
The mortality rate in 2023 was 8.6% higher than predicted for the year, well behind Israel (5.5 %) and Norway (5.2)
Excess fatalities are mainly impacting middle-aged persons aged 50 to 64, about 13.5% more than predicted, as well as under-25, about 11.8% higher.
People are also dying at a higher rate than they should from cardiac and heart-related disorders, respiratory infections, and diabetes, among other illnesses, according to the research.
Prof Carl Heneghan, head of the University of Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, told the Telegraph that patients had been “left to look after themselves,” while physicians and the government were “at odds” during the strikes.
The next six-day strike, according to NHS Medical Director Professor Sir Stephen Powis, will have a “serious impact in the weeks after” as services strive to recuperate and deal with increased demand.
The British Medical Association (BMA), the doctors’ union, has also been warned by NHS chiefs that, based on an analysis of previous strikes, the patients most at risk of harm this week were those with rapidly progressing cancers, time-critical inductions and urgent “elective” C-sections, and corneal transplant surgery.
The Telegraph examined Office for National Statistics (ONS) records for England, Wales, and Scotland and discovered that 52,698 more fatalities occurred by December 8 last year than would have been predicted based on a five-year average of deaths before Covid.
The official ONS research used to establish the five-year average eliminates 2020 but includes 2021, which is still substantially influenced by Covid. Last year, 595,789 people died.
As of mid-October 2023, when international data was available, Britain’s excess mortality rate of 8.6% was worse than any other developed country.
The data indicates that more than 1,000 extra people died every week, exceeding last year’s total of 50,200 and the peak of 51,200 during the 1951 flu epidemic. It is the highest amount since 1940, before the NHS existed, when there were around 96,000 more fatalities.
“We’re at a tipping point in the NHS,” Prof Heneghan said. “People are dying on the waiting list, those who require emergency care are not being sought and seen quickly enough, and social care is almost non-existent.”