Excess Heart Deaths In UK Now Being Blamed On NHS Backlogs & Delays

It seems that doctors are no longer baffled over the increasing rates of excess heart and stroke related deaths across the UK.

Blaming covid jabs is now just another ‘conspiracy theory’ as disruption to NHS services is being blamed for the tens of thousands of excess heart related deaths.

This follows the release of analysis by the British Heart Foundation linking those deaths on the reduced access to healthcare during the pandemic, and backlogs and delays in the NHS system that followed.

According to the BBC News: “Extreme disruption to NHS services has been driving a sharp spike in heart disease deaths since the start of the pandemic, a charity has warned.

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) said ambulance delays, inaccessible care and waits for surgery are linked to 30,000 excess cardiac deaths in England. It has called for a new strategy to reduce “unacceptable” waiting times.

The government has said it is investing another £500m to ease pressure on ambulances and boost hospital capacity.

The BHF said its analysis suggests 395,000 people in England could be on a waiting list for a heart test or procedure by April 2023 based on current trends, up from 224,000 before the start of the Covid pandemic.

Doctors and groups representing patients have become increasingly concerned about the high number of deaths of any cause recorded this year. Data from the Office for National Statistics suggests the overall number was 17% higher in England than would have been expected in the week ending October 21st, based on the average for previous years.

The Daily Sceptic reports: Michael Simmons in the Spectator notes the odd lack of interest from Government in the cause of these tens of thousands of deaths.

Despite increased pressure from academics, clinicians and now charities the Government still displays little interest in what could be considered one of our greatest ever health crises. An investigation was promised by the then Health Secretary earlier this year but we’re onto our third Government since then. An official in the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities wasn’t even aware it was something they monitored (they do) when asked earlier this week. 

The communications void on the issue is becoming a problem. Senior clinicians are starting to worry that the lack of attention from the Government and the health service is fuelling conspiracy theories. Dr Charles Levinson, CEO of Doctorcall, told me: “The silence around non-Covid excess deaths is fuelling conspiracy theories – the longer it goes on, the worse it’s getting. If the authorities don’t properly address and discuss the issue, this will only further undermine trust in public health.”

Those concerned about possible long-term effects of the vaccine are not the only ones intrigued by excess deaths. Some followers of the data have contacted me to suggest that perhaps there aren’t any excess deaths at all. There’s a worry among some that the crude averages used by the ONS do not account for an ageing population, and other demographic changes that occur over time. But the most senior figures in statistical academia refute this. Yes the ONS data is crude they say, but it’s not the only finding pointing to increased excess deaths. 

The OHID use a complicated methodology for their average deaths baseline which does take population change into account. They find excess deaths in 23 out of 39 weeks this year. The institute and faculty of actuaries (who just compare deaths to their 2019 level) finds an excess of deaths too: 1,388 in the week to 21 October, slightly less than the ONS. So three separate sources, with three different methodologies, find the same thing. Excess deaths are not some ‘data glitch’. 

This is a good response to the “ageing population” idea claimed by the BBC above to account for potentially over half the excess deaths. We might also point out that since the population hasn’t suddenly started ageing, if this was the explanation it should have been happening every year and we’d always see these ‘data glitch’ excess deaths. But a quick glance at the last decade shows the excess deaths in 2022 are far above those for any other year.

A Consultant in Emergency Medicine told me that in his view the types of cardiovascular problems that are spiking and killing people are not the kind that you would expect to arise from delayed treatment.

Lack of anti-anginal therapeutic optimisation usually means an increase in stable angina, not so much the acute coronary syndromes that result in ventricular fibrillation and sudden cardiac death in adults.

At this stage it is very difficult to prove, but logic would dictate, based on timing, that the deaths are directly attributable to cardiovascular effects of mRNA therapies, perhaps with lockdown neglect increasing vulnerability to them. Correlation is easily made between cardiac deaths and mRNA therapies, whereas VITT [blood-clotting] was more easily correlated to DNA therapy (AstraZeneca). Remember DNA therapy (AZ) is pretty much off the market and they didn’t recommend boosters. The timing of the cardiovascular events is with the mRNA therapies (Pfizer, Moderna).

When you see a population health change (in this case excess all-cause mortality and an uptick in cardiovascular disease) you have to look at how population behaviour has changed. There are only two horses in that race – lockdowns and their effect on health and healthcare access, and mRNA therapies. A reasonable hypothesis would be that the former has laid open vulnerability that the latter has capitalised on.