The daily updates on the number of coronavirus-related deaths in the UK have been paused following concerns about how the data was recorded in England.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock ordered an urgent review after Public Health England confirmed that reported deaths may have included people who tested positive for Covid-19 months before they died.
This is different to how other nations in the UK record their data, with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland only including those who died within 28 days of a positive test.
A note on the Government's website said: "The Secretary of State has today, 17 July, asked PHE to urgently review their estimation of daily death statistics.
"Currently the daily deaths measure counts all people who have tested positive for coronavirus and since died, with no cut-off between time of testing and date of death.
"There have been claims that the lack of cut-off may distort the current daily deaths number. We are therefore pausing the publication of the daily figure while this is resolved."
Public Health England's figures, which record the number of deaths across all settings, feed into the daily death statistics published by the Department for Health and Social Care.
Data from Public Health Wales, Health Protection Scotland and the Northern Ireland Public Health Agency is also fed in.
Daily figures given by NHS England, which apply specifically to people who have died in hospitals, will not be affected.
The current death toll in the UK according to the Department of Health is 45,233.
