Deaths due to influenza and post-mortems February 2020 to December 2021

FOI Ref: FOI/2022/3958

You asked

Please supply a list of deaths due to influenza where influenza was the only cause of death listed on the death certificate. Please provide this list by age and sex from February 2020 to December 2021.

Please also provide the number of autopsies carried out on those where influenza was the only cause of death for the above time period.

We said

Influenza deaths by age, sex and no-pre-existing conditions

Health conditions are recorded on the death certificate only if the certifying doctor or coroner believed they made some contribution to the death, direct or indirect. The death certificate does not include all health conditions from which the deceased might have suffered if they were not considered relevant.

The death certificate (Annex A (PDF, 224KB)) used in England and Wales is compatible with that recommended by WHO. It is set out in two parts. Part I gives the condition or sequence of conditions leading directly to death, while Part II gives details of any associated conditions that contributed to the death but are not part of the causal sequence. We recommend using our pre-existing conditions methodology to answer this question as it removes any conditions caused by the underlying cause of death.

We do not hold analysis of influenza deaths without pre-existing conditions. However, we can create this as a bespoke request for you. This special extract and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales is available to order but is subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate. Such enquiries can be made to: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.

You may find the following information useful:

Deaths where influenza is the underlying cause of death for 2020 can be found in our NOMIS webservice.

• Select the geography (England and Wales, regional or by local authority).  
• Select Age -- All ages or 5-year age bands.  
• Select Gender -- Total or Male/Female  
• Select rates -- All deaths, rates or percentage of population for example.  
• Select cause of death (ICD10 code search is available).  
• Select format (Excel or CSV for example)

However, this data set will not exclude pre-existing conditions. 2021 data will be available on NOMIS in July 2022.

Influenza deaths involving post-mortem

Information of the number of deaths by registration type (including the number of post-mortems) can be found annually in our Impact of registration delays on mortality statistics in England and Wales. This includes breakdowns of age, cause and location, and is released in the Autumn/Winter in the year after the reference period.

As such, the information you have requested for post-mortems in 2021 is considered exempt under Section 22(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, whereby information is exempt from release if there is a view to publish the information in the future. Furthermore, as a central government department and producer of official statistics, we need to have the freedom to be able to determine our own publication timetables. This is to allow us to deal with the necessary preparation, administration and context of publications. It would be unreasonable to consider disclosure when to do so would undermine our functions.

This exemption is subject to a public interest test. We recognise the desirability of information being freely available and this is considered by ONS when publication schedules are set in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. The need for timely data must be balanced against the practicalities of applying statistical skill and judgement to produce the high quality, assured data needed to inform decision-making. If this balance is incorrectly applied, then we run the risk of decisions being based on inaccurate data which is arguably not in the public interest. This will have an impact on public trust in official statistics in a time when accuracy of official statistics is more important to the public than ever before. Experimental estimates from the voluntary fortnightly Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS), for single-site businesses only, on topics such as trading status, financial performance, workforce, and business resilience. Geographical breakdowns include country, regional and local authority levels.