You asked
Please could you tell me the number of students who have died by suicide, by month, in 2020, and from Sep-Dec 2019.
I'm essentially looking for an updated version of this request (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/adhocs/12336suicidesinfulltimestudentsaged18yearsandabovebysexregisteredinenglandandwalesbetween2010and2019), including as many months of 2020 as you have available, and broken down month-by-month for 2020.
Please use the definition of students used in this request - "those aged 18 years and over, classified as being a full-time student at the time of death, for deaths registered in England and Wales." A breakdown by sex would also be appreciated if available.
We said
Thank you for your request.
The majority of 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.
Therefore, 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. The following dataset accompanying this bulletin provides this information broken down by age, sex, and region. Please note, due to the aforementioned registration delay, most of these deaths would have occurred in 2019.
In order to fulfil your specific request, we would need to create bespoke analysis. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Public Authorities are not obligated to create information in order to respond to requests. We therefore consider this to be information not held.
The analysis to which you refer in your request is bespoke, ad hoc analysis commissioned by another user. At present, data for suicides registered in 2020 has not yet been finalised. Bespoke data services will be available once the data has been finalised.
If you would like to discuss your request further, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.