You asked
Please provide:
- Number of influenza deaths in UK during 2019 and during 2020
- Number of covid 19 deaths in UK where that is the main and only cause of death. Do not include the following (any cause of death within 28 days, any cause of death within and above 60+ days, any deaths where there were underlying health issues)
- Number of suicides in the UK between March 2019 and January 2020
- Number of suicides in the UK between March 2020 and January 2021
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for the production of mortality data for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the death certificate at death registration. For suicide, COVID-19 and influenza statistics for Scotland and Northern Ireland, please contact National Records Scotland and NISRA respectively, as we do not hold this data for the whole of the UK.
However, please see the following information related to your request for England and Wales.
Number of influenza deaths during 2019 and during 2020:
2020:
Figure 2 of our Deaths registered weekly bulletin shows the number of deaths in 2020/2021 due to influenza and pneumonia and the number of deaths involving influenza and pneumonia.
"Due to" refers only to deaths where influenza and pneumonia was recorded as the underlying cause of death and "involving" referring to deaths that had influenza and pneumonia mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, whether as an underlying cause or not.
Please see the 'download data' option at the bottom of Figure 2 for these statistics.
In this publication, figures for both 'influenza and pneumonia' are grouped together (J09 – J18). Figures showing the number of deaths from influenza separately from pneumonia will be available once the data have been finalised in the summer 2021.
2019:
Deaths from influenza in 2019 can be accessed via our NOMIS webservice. Influenza is coded under J09-J11. This search can be used to search influenza deaths separately.
Please see following the instructions for our NOMIS webservice:
- 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): Please select J09-J11 for influenza deaths
- Select format (Excel or CSV for example)
Number of COVID-19 deaths in England and Wales where COVID-19 was the sole cause
We have been producing Pre-existing conditions of people whose death was recorded with an underlying cause of COVID-19, deaths registered in 2020. This dataset can be found in section 7 of the Monthly mortality analysis bulletin. This dataset provides a greater insight into the leading underlying causes of death groups for deaths occurring in England and Wales in 2020 and will be updated quarterly.
Please see 'table 1a, row 28' for deaths where COVID-19 was listed as the underlying cause, but had no other pre-existing conditions recorded on the death certificate.
Number of suicides in England and Wales between March 2019 and January 2020
Our suicide data is produced annually. The following link provides annual finalised suicide data available up to 2019: Suicides in England and Wales. Annual suicide totals are published in table 1.
We may be able to produce suicide data from March 2019 to January 2020 specifically for you as a custom output. Special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). If you are interested in the provision of this analysis, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.
Number of suicides in the UK between March 2020 and January 2021
Most suicides require an inquest, where a coroner investigates the death. The amount of time it takes to hold an inquest causes a lag between the date of death and the date of death registration, referred to as a registration delay. Registration delays for deaths caused by suicide tend to be 5 to 6 months on average.
Our most up-to-date analysis for suicide data are our quarterly provisional figures, accessible via the following link: Quarterly suicide death registrations in England: 2001 to 2019 registrations and Quarter 1 to Quarter 3 2020 (provisional). This provides suicides that have been registered from January to September 2020, along with age and sex breakdowns on table 2. Please note, due to the aforementioned registration delay, most of these deaths would have occurred in 2019.
Finalised 2020 suicide data for England and Wales will be available later this year.
If you would like to discuss your request further, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.