COLCHESTER General Hospital had over 300 more deaths than expected last year, according to research.

The hospital trust is one of the top 13 NHS Trusts to have ‘excess deaths’ between January and December last year.

NHS Digital released the report, collecting the data from 134 hospital trusts.

The expected deaths at each hospital trust is worked out by calculating how many deaths the trust would have if they had the English national average death rates.

The death rate is then calculated by dividing the actual deaths following time in hospital by the expected deaths for the time in hospital.

The Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust recorded 2,473 deaths last year, when it had only expected 2,164.

It means there were 309 more deaths than expected.

Barbara Buckley, chief medical officer at Colchester General Hospital, said the figures were looking a lot more positive this year, although we were unable to see the figures for this year.

There was a spike this January and February, which happened across the country due to cold weather, but Dr Buckley said figures from March onwards were back to being as expected.

She said the causes were often due to cold weather, or because the patients were elderly when they were admitted to hospital.

Some already had serious health conditions before being admitted.

She said: “There is a standard mortality rate at any time of year based on what patients come in, and how old they are, for example.

“In January and February the figures were higher for that time of year, there were a lot of people over 85 who had other illnesses, and we had a lot of patients from coastal regions and nursing homes who may have been at the end of their lives.

“It happens much more in the winter as they get chest problems, but it was back to normal from March onwards.”

She said what was positive was the fact the hospital monitors deaths every week, and it was a very rigorous and thorough process.

She added: “There was a peak in the country in January, and we have an elderly population, but the good thing is we review every patient who dies.

“Overall the rate is coming down.”

The ‘unexpected’ death rate does not change depending on the day of the week, it stays the same across weekdays and weekends.

Across England estimates suggest around 3,700 more patients than officials expected died after spending time in the hospitals ran by the trusts that had given data.Chiefs nationally warn the data is only a ‘smoke alarm’ and only warrants the need for further investigations to examine the cause of the excess deaths.