DWP figures show that, between January and November 2011, 10,600 sick and disabled people died within six weeks of their benefit claim ending; many disability campaigners believe that these deaths occurred after — and even because — the claimants were declared fit for work. The Daily Telegraph has questioned this: it posits that the 10,600 deaths include people who happened to die from natural causes, after which their benefit payments ceased. The newspaper said that when the DWP states "within six weeks", this "does not mean 'within the following six weeks': it means 'within six weeks either side'. What that means is that the large, presumably overwhelming, majority of those 10,600 people died, and then their claims ended because they were dead."
