Drug reporting on death certificates

Dyddiad y datganiad:
9 May 2022

FOI Ref: ​FOI/2022/4076

You asked

I am writing to make a request for statistics. I would like to know:

  1. number of death certificates mentioning propranolol per year for the past 20 years in the UK.
  2. number of death certificates mentioning diazepam per year for the past 20 years in the UK.
  3. number of death certificates mentioning propranolol per year, with a cause of death of suicide, for the past 20 years in the UK.
  4. number of death certificates mentioning diazepam per year, with a cause of death of suicide, for the past 20 years in the UK.
  5. total number of death certificates with a cause of death of suicide per year, for the past 20 years in the UK.

It is a similar request to one already made https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/adhocs/009457numberofdrugpoisoningdeathswherepropranololwasmentionedonthedeathcertificateenglandandwalesregisteredbetween1993and2017.  However, I am especially interested in the last 5 years which are not available in this report.

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

We are responsible for and hold Mortality data for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the death certificate 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.

The referenced publication is a user requested data set released under our Open Data Policy. It is not part of the ONS publication schedule and was a specific request made by a customer.

We have the following publication Deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) which is part of our standard release schedule, but this does not cover the exact data you have requested.

We can create your requested data for you as a special extract and tabulation. It is available to order from our Health Data Customer Service team. Such services are subject to legal frameworks, resources, and agreement of costs. If you would like to request this bespoke dataset, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk to discuss your enquiry further. Please note, there will be a charge for this work which would be subject to our charging policy.

As this information is reasonably accessible via another route, even if only accessible on payment, Section 21(1)(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) applies.

Gwneud cais Rhyddid Gwybodaeth

Everything you need to know about Freedom of Information and how to go about making a request.