FOI reference: FOI-2025-2943
You asked
I am looking for the following data, in relation to Coronavirus (COVID-19) deaths, which I am hoping you can help me with.
- Cumulative COVID-19 death data from the start of the pandemic until the end of 2023, broken down by constituency, local authority, or county (I need data that is more granular than regional i.e. 'Northwest'. Ideally this would be by constituency but accept that may not be how data is collated.)
- Ideally, I would receive both the raw number of deaths but also the death rate (so deaths per. x of the population in the area.)
- If possible, the same level of data, but looking at all causes of deaths – whether this is a single number or broken down into a level of granularity that expresses the cause of the other deaths i.e. accident, cancer, etc.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for the production of mortality and births statistics pertaining to England and Wales. These are derived from information collected at the registration of death. National Records Scotland (NRS) and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
Our mortality statistics are based on information collected during the death registration process. This includes details from both the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) and the official registration record.
All of the conditions mentioned on the death certificate are coded using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). From all of these causes an underlying cause of death is selected using ICD-10 coding rules.
The underlying cause of death is defined by World Health Organisation (WHO) as:
a) the disease or injury that initiated the train of events directly leading to death, or
b) the circumstances of the accident or violence that produced the fatal injury.
You can use our interactive webservice Nomis - Official Census and Labour Market Statistics which will provide deaths by underlying cause, age and location from 2013 to 2023.
To use NOMIS:
Select Query Data
Select Life Events
Select Mortality Statistics – Underlying cause sex and age.
Select Geography (this can be at local authority level, MSOA, Regional, or National level).
Select Date range from 2013 to 2023.
Select Age range – total or 5-year age bands.
Select total deaths or rates (this will give you total deaths and rates per population).
Select Sex
Select Cause – Here you can select All causes or by leading cause groups, or by individual ICD-10 code.
Check Summary of your selections
Select output file type.
Download Data
NOMIS does not hold data by constituency, the lowest level of geography available is Local Authority level.
We also have the following user requested datasets available:
- Deaths by sex, age group, cause and local authority, England, deaths registered 1993 to 2013 - Office for National Statistics
- Deaths by sex, single year of age, underlying cause (ICD-10 code) and deprivation decile, England, and Wales: 2001 to 2023 - Office for National Statistics
- Numbers and age-standardised mortality rates for premature deaths by 2022 parliamentary constituency and sex, deaths registered in 2023 - Office for National Statistics
If NOMIS and the user requested datasets do not meet your needs, we can explore what can be produced as a bespoke dataset. This, along with other special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order, subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs in line with the ONS charging policy.
For further information on this service, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.
As this information is reasonably accessible via another route, Section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) applies.