FOI reference: FOI-2025-2636
You asked
How many people in the UK died in 2024 with the following diagnoses recorded in part 1A of their death certificate?
- Aortic stenosis
- Aortic regurgitation
- Mitral regurgitation
- Mitral stenosis
- Tricuspid regurgitation
Please specify numbers for each individual diagnosis, and please also specify if any of these were recorded as '(treated)'.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for the production of mortality statistics for England and Wales. 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.
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, which are published on the World Health Organisation's (WHO) website.
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.
The data we receive from the death registration does not include any information on treatment.
The selection of the underlying cause of death is generally made from the condition or conditions entered in the lowest completed line of Part I of the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD). If the death certificate has not been completed correctly - for example, if there is more than one cause on a single line with no indication of sequence or the conditions entered are not an acceptable causal sequence - it becomes necessary to apply one or more of the selection rules in the ICD-10.
All other conditions except the one identified as the underlying causes on the death certificate are considered ‘mentions’ (conditions that were involved in the death, but were not the underlying cause) .
In combination, all this means that the underlying cause will often not be the condition recorded in line 1A - where this applies, the condition in line 1A will be a ‘mention’.
With this distinction in mind:
The number of deaths registered in England and Wales where the causes you require was the underlying cause (regardless of which line it appeared on the death certificate) can be obtained from our explorable dataset available on our NOMIS webservice.
Please refer to the following instructions to use this service:
- 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)
The specific information you have requested would need to be created as bespoke analysis - e.g. a tabulation that considers only where these conditions appeared in line 1A, regardless of whether they ended up being identified as the underlying cause or not, and also ignoring where these conditions appeared on other lines.
Please note, bespoke services are subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs in line with the ONS charging policy published on the ONS website. Please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk for more information.