By Professor John Robertson, OBA

From Public Health Scotland today:

Unadjusted hospital mortality remained relatively stable at between 2.6% and 3.3% over the majority of the five-year period from July 2019 to June 2024. The relatively small variation shows clear seasonal patterns with increases in mortality during the winter months. However, larger increases occurred during the COVID-19 epidemic in Scotland, with unadjusted hospital mortality reaching 5.4% during the first wave, 4.4% during the second wave. Since the quarter April to June 2021, the crude mortality rate has been between 3.2% to 4.0%, showing seasonal variation.1

NHS England chooses not to publish the above figures. However, you can find the totals.

In Scotland, for 2023/2024, it was 27 234 hospital-associated deaths¹.

All things being equal, per head, NHS England might have been expected to have 10 times as many, 272 340, but it had 288 415 hospital deaths², 5.9% more. That’s a significant figure. 16 181 more dying in NHS England who might not have after 17 years of SNP rule and around 1 600 not dying in NHS Scotland who might have after 14 tears of Tory rule.

Why might this be? More nurses and hospital beds? No NHS strikes? If it was the other way round, who’d get the blame?

Sources:

1. https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/hospital-standardised-mortality-ratios/hospital-standardised-mortality-ratios-july-2023-to-june-2024
2. https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/shmi/2024-09/shmi-data