You asked
How many people have died per week from cancer in 2020 compared to previous years?
Please also provide a breakdown of those who have died with Covid on Part 2 only of the death certificate?
We said
Thank you for your request.
COVID-19
We have been producing the following in the response to COVID-19: publication Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales. This publication provides a greater insight into the leading underlying causes of death groups for deaths occurring in England and Wales between March and June 2020. Figures for COVID-19 deaths with no underlying health conditions are available on table 5, this means where no other underlying condition was listed on the death certificate. Here are the figures below:
- No pre-existing condition: England and Wales – 4476
- No pre-existing condition: England – 4169
- No pre-existing condition: Wales – 294
Provisional monthly death registration data for England and Wales, broken down by sex, age and country are now available in the following monthly publication: Monthly mortality analysis, England and Wales. This publication contains data from July onwards and includes deaths due to COVID-19 and leading causes of death. We are no longer publishing monthly COVID-19 deaths by pre-existing conditions, because the numbers are now small enough that providing this level of detail poses a disclosure risk. We are constantly reassessing, with any new increase in the numbers of deaths by COVID-19 we will revisit this and see how we can continue to publish analysis to inform users.
In any event, in order to provide the requested information from July 2020 to present, we would need use a high level of statistical skill and judgement in order to create bespoke analysis. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Public Authorities are not obligated to create information in order to respond to requests. We therefore consider this to be information not held.
Cancer
We currently only have provisional cancer statistics available in both of the following publications: Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales (table 1, ICD10 codes C15 – C96) and Monthly mortality analysis, England and Wales (table 11, leading causes – 'malignant neoplasm').
Unfortunately, we are unable to provide you with a full breakdown of the number of people who died per week from cancer in 2020. In order to fulfil this request, we would need use a high level of statistical skill and judgement in order to create bespoke analysis. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Public Authorities are not obligated to create information in order to respond to requests. We therefore consider this to be information not held. A full breakdown of mortality data for 2020 is expected to be available in the annual death registrations publication, which is expected to be released in July 2021. This will include cancer/neoplasm statistics. Please see the following link to previous years' annual data which may be of interest: Deaths registration series.
If you would like to discuss these statistics further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.
For more detailed analysis of Cancer statistics, please see the following link to Public Health England's website: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/phe-data-and-analysis-tools