Deaths from COVID-19, other respiratory illnesses, suicides, recovery from COVID-19 and hospital admissions

You asked

​​I have searched the internet but cannot find the following information:

1. Percentage of people who have recovered from COVID-19.
2. Number of Deaths only from COVID-19 where the person had no other underlying conditions.
3. Number of Deaths from all other respiratory related conditions where COVID-19 was not present compared to previous years.
4. Number of excess deaths caused from lockdowns, limited access to usual healthcare, suicide & cancelled hospital operations.
5. Hospital admission data and nightingale hospital admissions.

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

We are responsible for the production of mortality statistics for England and Wales. We use information collated from the death certificate. Unfortunately, we do not have access to hospital admissions, discharges, cancellation of operations or limited access to healthcare or COVID recovery. Therefore, we consider this information not held. NHS Digital may be better placed to answer your query. They can be contacted via email at enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk, and by telephone at 0300 303 5678.

We also do not hold any information regarding recovery rates for COVID-19. This part of your request may be better placed with Public Health England (PHE). They can be contacted via email at wn_coronavirus@phe.gov.uk.

Deaths from COVID-19 with no pre-existing conditions:

COVID-19 death data with and without pre-existing conditions are available within our Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales publication. This publication states that between March to June 2020, there were 4,476 deaths involving COVID-19 where there were no pre-existing conditions. Please note, this publication has now been paused. Therefore, in order to provide this data for July to November, we would need use 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.

Within our Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales publication, we provide a weekly breakdown of COVID-19 deaths in the downloadable dataset beneath Figure 2.

We use the term "due to COVID-19" when referring only to deaths where that illness was recorded as the underlying cause of death. We use the term "involving COVID-19" when referring to deaths that had that illness mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, whether as an underlying cause or not.

Deaths involving and due to COVID-19, England and Wales, deaths registered in 2020

Deaths involving and due to Influenza and pneumonia are also available weekly within our Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, in the downloadable dataset beneath Figure 2.

Death from respiratory illness, not involving COVID-19

2020:

Our Monthly mortality analysis, England and Wales publication provides the top ten leading causes of death, including deaths caused by respiratory illness where COVID-19 was not present.

In order to provide further analysis of respiratory deaths for 2020 where COVID-19 is not present, we would need 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.

Earlier years:

Our Deaths registered in England and Wales provides registered deaths by age, sex, selected underlying causes of death and the leading causes of death. Contains death rates and death registrations by area of residence and single year of age for 2012-2019.

Additionally, annual figures for deaths from respiratory illness from 2013 to 2019 can be accessed through our explorable dataset available on our NOMIS webservice, accessible via the following link: NOMIS webservice. Respiratory illnesses are coded under J00-J99.

• 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). J00-J99
• Select format (Excel or CSV for example)

Suicides:

Unfortunately, will be unable to begin reporting on suicide deaths that occurred during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic until early 2021.

We produce provisional suicide data for England on a quarterly basis, with the latest update including deaths registered from January to September 2020. The publication explains that the majority of suicides require an inquest, where a coroner must investigate the cause of death. The amount of time taken to hold an inquest causes a lag between the date the death occurred and the date the death is registered. We refer to this as a registration delay and registration delays for deaths caused by suicide tend to be five to six months on average. Because our data is based on death registrations, this delay means that most deaths recorded for 2020 so far would have occurred in 2019. More detailed information can be found in the publication.

You may be interested in our annual Suicides in the UK release. Please note, this is based on 2019 death registrations. Data is available in this publication for 2011 to 2019.

Our Suicides in England and Wales by local authority publication will provide number of suicides, suicide rates and median registration delays, by local authority in England and Wales, registered from 2002 to 2019.