Reference: FOI-2024-1748
You asked
I would like to request statistics on the last 5 years (2019 to 2023) on the following:
- UK total deaths from stairs (in the house and other buildings)
- Length of stay in hospital for those who were hospitalised
- Number of those who survived with severe disability
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for the production of mortality statistics for deaths registered in England and Wales. This is driven by information collected from death certificates at death registration. National Records Scotland (NRS) and 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 data comes from the information collected at death registration. All 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 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
Causes of death are certified in most cases by a doctor, who records the sequence of medical conditions and relevant events leading to, or contributing to, the death, based on the deceased's healthcare records and other available information, such as laboratory tests or post-mortem investigation. Some deaths are certified by a coroner who determines the causes of death following an inquest, based on all the available evidence.
ICD-10 code W10 would be used for falls from stairs and steps.
The associated download is an output from our interactive webservice NOMIS for England and Wales. If you would like further disaggregation of the data from NOMIS please see the following instructions to extract data from this site:
Select period – 2021 to 2013.
Select the geography (England and Wales, regional or by local authority).
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)
For historic data, you can find this in our 20th Century Mortality files. Data from 2001 to 2021 can be found in the 21st Century Mortality Files.
We have not completed analysis of data for 2023, this is provisionally scheduled to be published in July 2024. We can offer a bespoke dataset using provisional data. Bespoke services are subject to disclosure control, legal frameworks, resource, and agreement to costs under the ONS Charging policy.
If you would like further information, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.
We do not hold data relating to hospitalisation due to falls or injuries from falls leading to disabilities. NHS England may be better placed to answer this enquiry and can be contacted at england.contactus@nhs.net.