The Health department says there is a perfectly good explanation for a 29% rise in the number of excess winter deaths to 31,100 in 2012/13. It is pointing to research by Public Health England which linked the rise to a longer flu season and continuing cold weather late into the winter and early spring. But as Fraser argued in his Telegraph column earlier this year, there is still not nearly enough that is being done to combat excess winter deaths, whether or not this year’s 29% rise is a one-off.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman didn’t seem particularly keen to suggest that there was anything else, beyond NHS planning and public health spending, that should be done, when he responded to the figures today. He said:
‘[The government] has a range of things to support the vulnerable: the winter fuel payments, and cold weather payments.
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