The Office for National Statistics has scrapped plans to no longer report the deaths of homeless people after an outcry.
The data body for England and Wales proposed cutting the release of the figures to help increase the efficiency of health data. But the idea was attacked as “callous” by campaigners.
An ONS spokesperson said: “Following early feedback from the consultation we can confirm we will be continuing the publication of deaths of homeless people. However, producing statistics in the area is complex and we will be doing further work to ensure more robust data on this important issue.”
The move comes amid rising rough sleeping with cuts to county council support services to hundreds of homeless people looming next week at the end of the financial year.
“Rough sleeping is still rising and it’s chilling to think how many of those vulnerable people have died,” said Alicia Walker, the head of policy at the Centrepoint charity. “They’re more than numbers, but as the government appears to have abandoned its aim to end rough sleeping this year, we need to keep counting.”
She said the data on rough sleeper deaths influenced policy to make sure resources reached the most in need and that “their annual release is a regular reminder that we are failing the country’s most vulnerable people – some of them barely out of school – and a motivation to not fail others in similar positions”.
The last data, for 2021, showed there were an estimated 741 deaths of homeless people registered in England and Wales, but figures for 2022 have yet to be released. Thirty five per cent of the deaths registered in 2021 were from drug poisoning, 13% from suicide and 10% from alcohol.
Rick Henderson, the chief executive of Homeless Link, the membership body for frontline homelessness organisations in England, said he was pleased the ONS had listened and said it was “vital to continue to monitor these to provide evidence for its human cost, with the aim of forcing local and national government and health and social care services to take action to address its causes”.
