Fact checking misleading claims in three major UK newspapers.

17 Sep 2021 | Full Fact's weekly news
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FACT CHECK
No, health won’t account for 40% of all public spending
Following the government’s decision to increase National Insurance to fund health and social care, The Telegraph and The Sun reported that health and social care spending would account for around 40% of “all public spending.” The i newspaper went with 44%. Both figures are misleading.

Health spending will amount to around 40% of day-to-day public spending from government departmental budgets. But that total doesn’t include the large amount of money spent on welfare payments, like pensions and benefits.

If these were included, then health is forecast to account for around 20% of all day-to-day spending over the next few years.

How the government spends money ([link removed])
FACT CHECK
Newspapers incorrectly report Covid hospitalisations over seven months as over seven days ([link removed])

Sky News, the Evening Standard and the Independent recently reported that 9,472 people were admitted to hospitals in England with the Delta variant of Covid-19 in the week up to 29 August 2021.

But the data came from a report by Public Health England, which clearly states that it shows figures from 1 February to 29 August.

Additionally, PHE told us that the data only covers a minority of people in hospital, as not all cases of Covid-19 in hospital are sequenced to determine which variant is present. Weekly data on Delta variant hospitalisations isn’t available from these PHE reports, which run on a fortnightly schedule.

But we can use other data to find out how many people across England in the week up to 29 August were admitted to hospital with any variant of Covid-19. That’s 5,407 people. This includes people who may have had Covid but attended hospital for a different reason, and people who may have only tested positive once they were already in hospital.

In recent months, the vast majority of cases identified as a specific variant have been cases of the Delta variant, meaning the total number of cases and the total number of Delta variant cases are very similar.

The Independent and Sky have since corrected their reports. We have also contacted the Standard about their article.

What the data actually shows ([link removed])
FACT CHECK


** New healthcare workers suicide figures should be treated with caution ([link removed])
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The i newspaper has reported new data claiming to show that 64 frontline healthcare workers died by suicide at the beginning of the pandemic.

But the data represents the number of suicides of healthcare professionals registered, not those which occurred, in the first six months of 2020 in England and Wales.

There is often a long gap between a suicide occurring and being registered as all suspected suicides are investigated by a coroner, in a process which typically takes around five to six months. Because of this, the majority of all deaths by suicide which were registered in the first half of 2020 actually happened before 2020 began.

This is important to bear in mind when reading any reports on suicide figures. And whatever the trends are, that isn’t to deny that the pandemic may have had a negative mental health impact on healthcare workers.

The Samaritans’ helpline is available at all hours and can be contacted free on 116 123, or you can email [email protected].

Why we should be cautious ([link removed])
FACT CHECK


** Once more for the people in the back: The government did not give £37 billion to Serco ([link removed])
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We frequently see people on social media getting things wrong about the relationship between the government, the Test and Trace programme, and Serco.

Most recently, a widely shared claim on Facebook says that Serco “magically disappeared” £37 billion. But the total value of contracts signed with Serco under the Test and Trace programme by the end of March 2021 was about £623 million.

So where does the £37 billion come from? That’s the two year budget for the Test and Trace programme - not what has been spent so far. And there’s no guarantee that all of this will be spent. The first year of the programme was around £9 billion under budget.

In short, the government has certainly spent a large amount of money on the Test and Trace programme - but only a small proportion went to Serco.

The big picture ([link removed])
MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...
* Evidence does not show the Mu variant is ‘immune to vaccines’ ([link removed])
* Fact checking key claims about the new health & social care plan ([link removed])
* Can you have a shorter gap between Covid vaccines in pregnancy? ([link removed])

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