Date published:
ONS released a paper detailing a new UK-wide methodology for estimating expected deaths, which is used to calculate excess deaths, at 9.30 am on 20 February 2024. The following is an information paper summarising the change in methodology and the impact to Northern Ireland estimates. There is also an extraction of the UK dataset published by ONS, that accompanied the methodology paper, containing the Northern Ireland specific data for users convenience.
Correction Notice 6 August 2024: Historical estimates of expected and excess deaths for Weeks 52 and 53 using the new approach have been corrected. These values had previously been estimated using a baseline period of six rather than five years; this happened because of a human error and has now been corrected in the backseries spreadsheet. Estimates for weeks other than Weeks 52 and 53 are unaffected, nor are the monthly and annual estimates.
20 January 2025: NISRA has released a supplementary information paper to demonstrate to users both the need for the change in methodology, and how the model-based approach has improved accuracy of estimated expected deaths.