NHS cuts have played part in rise in excess deaths, study claims

A controversial study has claimed that failures in the health and social care system in England and Wales have played a part in a rise in the number of excess deaths in 2015.

The government, however, has reacted strongly to the study’s conclusions, saying that they are highly speculative and biased.

The study,1 with an accompanying commentary,2 published on 17 February in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, was an analysis carried out by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the University of Oxford, and Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council.

The researchers had sought to analyse why there were 30 515 excess deaths in 2015 in England …