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Written question asked by Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 27 January 2026, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 10 February 2026. It was answered by Baroness Merron (Labour) on Tuesday, 3 February 2026 on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.

Mortality Rates

Question

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps NHS England has taken to audit the "automated data process" introduced in Spring 2023; and how it has validated the permanent rectification of the technical defects in mortality data which necessitated the withdrawal of the September 2025 LeDeR report.

Answer

The errors in the updated 2023 Learning from lives and deaths – people with a learning disability and autistic people report, which was produced by King’s College London, were found to be caused by an automated data-processing issue. This meant that some data on the causes of death was missing at the time of analysis. This affected the conclusions originally published. NHS England worked closely with King’s College London, to review the report, and a revised version has now been published on 27 January 2026.

NHS England has also worked with its data processor to correct the automated processing error so that it cannot recur. King’s College London has strengthened its data checking protocols to prevent similar issues in the future. The Department is assured that this issue has now been resolved and these improvements have been applied to the revised report.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
HL14028
Session
2024-26
Subjects
Databases Automation Mortality rates NHS England Learning Disabilities Mortality Review Programme
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk