You asked
Please provide the number of people who died of seasonal flu between January and June 2019 and the number of people who died of seasonal flu between January and June 2020?
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for producing mortality statistics for England and Wales, which is derived from 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
Please see the following answers to your questions.
Number of people who died from seasonal flu January to June 2019:
All our mortality data comes from the information collected at death registration. All of 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
In the ICD-10 revision, Influenza is coded J09-J11.
Please see the following link to our explorable data webservice: NOMIS webservice. Annual influenza figures can be extracted using the query builder function. Please note, that ICD-10 Codes J09-J11 will need to be selected to produce influenza deaths. Please see the following instructions for 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)
This will provide you with a dataset showing the number of deaths from influenza in 2019.
Please also see the following dataset: Deaths registered in England and Wales. Table 8 of this publication categorises deaths by cause, which includes 'Diseases of the respiratory system'. However, this includes ICD-10 codes J00-J99, and therefore does not show the number of deaths just from influenza.
If you would like to discuss these statistics further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk
Number of people who have died from seasonal flu January to June 2020:
Unfortunately, we are unable to provide you with a full breakdown of the number of people who died from influenza between January and June 2020. In order to fulfil this request, we would need use a high level of statistical skill and judgement in order to create this analysis. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Public Authorities are not obligated to create information in order to respond to requests.
However, please see the following publication: Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: week ending 21 August 2020. This publication contains provisional 2020 death data, which includes deaths where influenza and pneumonia have been mentioned on the death certificate. A full breakdown of mortality data for 2020 is expected to be available in our annual deaths publication, which is provisionally scheduled to be released in July 2021.