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You're totally right about it being a product of the system but I thought I'd share this anyway.
When I worked in NHS commissioning data it was a thing that fewer people would go to hospital at the weekends. Lots of theories were put forward and there were multiple drivers behind it but in normal times people did tend to have a higher threshold for attending hospital at weekends as opposed to going to hospital when they could have paid leave from work. Obviously only applies to things that you probably shouldn't bother a hospital with rather than taking to your GP though.
Might have changed since but I remember being fascinated by variations like this.
If the NHS system works the same way as in Sweden a death is counted on the day it's registered, even if the death occured a few days earlier. Our stats show a dip every weekend and an increase on Mondays and Tuesdays, but it has more to do with the way the system works rather than actual deaths.