What is it about?
Since 2011 deaths in the UK have shown a dramatic and unexpected increase. Some studies have suggested that this is due to austerity imposed on English local authorities. However, deaths in Scotland, which has chosen to largely protect social care funding, are showing the same trends as England. Clearly, something other than austerity is at work. Using deaths from January to April total deaths in 2018 are forecast to grow even further. In retrospect, deaths across the UK suddenly fell in mid to late 2018 (dependant on location). See further studies in this series.
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Why is it important?
A person's lifetime usage of acute inpatient services occurs mostly in the last year of life. The dramatic rise in deaths is, therefore, having a huge impact on NHS cost and capacity pressures. Up to the present, it has been expedient for the government to blame these cost pressures on 'inefficiency', thereby avoiding an awkward discussion regarding reality.
Perspectives
In hindsight, immediately after April of 2018 deaths across the UK showed a dramatic reduction leading to greatly reduced deaths for the 2018 calendar year - forecasting is fraught with dangers! More importantly, what triggered this sudden decrease? This is part of a far wider series of papers regarding NHS bed requirements and cost pressures, see http://www.hcaf.biz/2010/Publications_Full.pdf
Dr Rodney P Jones
Healthcare Analysis & Forecasting
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Deaths in the UK show a large increase in 2018, British Journal of Healthcare Management, August 2018, Mark Allen Group,
DOI: 10.12968/bjhc.2018.24.8.410.
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