FOI Ref: FOI/2022/3964
You asked
Please supply the following information:
1) How much money has NHS England spent on prescriptions for HIV/AIDS (e.g. antiretroviral therapy) for inmates/prisoners in the past 5 years. Please break down figures by a) year b) type of prescription.
2) How many prison deaths in England in the past 5 years had HIV or AIDS listed as the 'leading cause' of death . Please can you break down figures by a) gender b) age c) ethnicity d) year/month
3) How many prison deaths in England in the past 5 years had HIV or AIDS listed as an 'underlying factor' re. Cause/circumstance of death. Please can you breakdown figures by a) gender b) age c) ethnicity d) year/month
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We are responsible for the production of mortality data for England and Wales, which is based on the information collected at death registration.
From the causes listed on the death certificate, 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
Human immunodeficiency virus [HIV] disease and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome [AIDS] are defined using ICD-10 codes B20-B24.
At present, ethnicity can only be determined via complex analysis which involves linking census to death registrations records. There are plans for ethnicity to be included on the death certificate in the future, but we are not involved in changes to the death certification process for England and Wales. Therefore, we do not hold the requested information by ethnicity unfortunately.
From the information recorded on the death certificate we can identify deaths that occurred in a prison facility. Although most deaths that occur in prison are likely to be residents, our mortality data could also include deaths of visitors or personnel, if that is where they died. There is also the possibility of an undercount of deaths in prison because a resident suffering from a fatal illness might be transported to hospital prior to their death, in which case the place of occurrence would be recorded as hospital.
We have looked at our death registrations database and found that there were no deaths registered in England or Wales between 2016 and 2020 where the place of occurrence was a prison, and the underlying cause of death was HIV/AIDS (defined using ICD codes B20-B24).
We would suggest you contact Ministry of Justice or Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service, as they may provide more accurate statistics on deaths in prison.
We do not hold information on prescriptions, please contact NHS Digital who may be better placed to assist with this query.
If you wish to discuss this further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.