A flu jab blunder that led to more than 16,000 deaths has unexpectedly seen the pension debts of Britain’s biggest companies shrink by almost £30 billion.
The unforeseen consequence of wrongly mixing flu vaccinations for thousands of over 65s led to winter deaths spiking by 16,415 in 2016.
The knock-on effect was longevity statistics which actuaries consult to calculate pension benefits dropped leading to companies needing to set aside less cash to fund their final salary pensions.
The flu jab error has led to life expectancy for men falling 1.3% and 2% for women.
For the first time in two decades, life expectancy for babies born this year has lowered by two months to 79.3 years for girls and three months to 82.9 years for boys.
Thousands of unexpected deaths
The figures come from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, which is responsible for maintaining the Continuous Mortality Investigation, which analyses data from the Office of National Statistics which pension providers us for calculating life expectancy and benefits paid by their schemes.
The unexpected deaths came from doctors wrongly mixing the flu jab.
Instead of matching the vaccine to protect against the main flu strain for half of people contracting the bug, the vaccine delivered to patients only safeguarded a third.
The flu season also started earlier than predicted.
Together, the two flu events increased the mortality rate for 2016 compared with previous years.
The flu blunder may also account for the problems the NHS had in coping with admissions in the past winters as fewer patients were expected later in the year.
Health care strain
Glyn Bradley, one of the heads of retirement consultancy Mercer’s Innovation, Policy and Research team said: “Some explain this as due to the strain in the UK’s health and care system. On the other hand, this winter’s excess mortality in the UK isn’t noticeably worse than for our European neighbours.
“What does seem to be occurring across the northern hemisphere is that winter flu has started comparatively early in December in the UK. This means the calendar year 2016 caught significant parts of two winter flu outbreaks rather just one.
“Hospital admissions, for example, appear to have peaked in mid-January, whereas in 2016 they didn’t peak until March.”