Source
buildmonkeyOPLeft a bit, down a bit•

And Sir Bruce Keogh, the report's author, has just been on Radio 4 saying that his report should not have been used to claim that there were 13,000 avoidable deaths, adding that national politicians "have their own aims" and that it is not for him to comment.

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axlotus•

I would like to see where that number was taken from, I doubt that even the stupidest journalist would pull it from thin air. Is 13,000 the annual number of deaths while in care or something?

Anyway, this is all premature until the report comes out.

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whencanistopslightly green, but not very•

My explanation is not going to be scientific and there is a little more to it than this, but I'm hoping it will be useful (and shorter than the article).

Someone gets some data from most hospitals. It works out what the average number of deaths are per year. It takes hospitals that are on the fringe of the higher end of the spectrum and works out the difference between their deaths and the average. The difference is 13k.

Anyone with a grade 3 in the replacement for GCSE Maths could tell you why this is rubbish. For example one better performing hospital misclassified a load of deaths that should be included in the data but aren't, so appeared to perform better. Than one hospital performing better than it should increased the average and increased the number of 'needless' deaths at other hospitals who don't perform well.

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buildmonkeyOPLeft a bit, down a bit•

Anyway, this is all premature until the report comes out.

Agreed. The explanation for the dodgy stats is here. So perhaps people like the Telegraph should shut up. As the author of the report said:

Not my calculations, not my views. Don’t believe everything you read, particularly in some newspapers

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