FOI Ref: FOI/2021/3441
You asked
Please supply information on occupations where people died from Covid. For example, doctors, nurses, and funeral directors.
Please supply this for Covid deaths in Dorset and BCP areas for 2020 - 2021.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry regarding COVID-19 deaths by occupation.
Our latest release on this topic, named Coronavirus (COVID-19) related deaths by occupation, England and Wales: deaths registered between 9 March and 28 December 2020, provides COVID-19 deaths by minor occupation group in Table 6.
Occupations defined using the Standard Occupation Classification (SOC 2010).
Descriptions of individual occupations can be found here: SOC2010 volume 1: structure and descriptions of unit groups.
The SOC code group for funeral directors is:
- 6148 Undertakers, mortuary, and crematorium assistances.
The SOC codes for healthcare workers are:
- 1181 Health services and public health managers and directors
- 1241 Health care practice managers
- 2211 Medical practitioners
- 2212 Psychologists
- 2213 Pharmacists
- 2214 Ophthalmic opticians
- 2215 Dental practitioners
- 2217 Medical radiographers
- 2218 Podiatrists
- 2219 Health professionals n.e.c.
- 2221 Physiotherapists
- 2222 Occupational therapists
- 2223 Speech and language therapists
- 2229 Therapy professionals n.e.c.
- 2231 Nurses
- 2232 Midwives
- 3213 Paramedics
- 3217 Pharmaceutical technicians
- 3218 Medical and dental technicians
- 3219 Health associate professionals n.e.c.
- 4211 Medical secretaries
- 6141 Nursing auxiliaries and assistants
- 6142 Ambulance staff (excluding paramedics)
- 6143 Dental nurses
- 7114 Pharmacy and other dispensing assistants
- 9271 Hospital porters
We have also produced an adhoc dataset which you may have referenced in your request: Coronavirus (COVID-19) related deaths by occupation, England and Wales: before and during the lockdown.
Unfortunately, we do not hold mortality analysis for 2021 which includes details of occupation. However, we can create this as a bespoke 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). Such enquiries would fall outside of the Freedom of Information regime and should be made to: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.
Unfortunately, we are unable to publish this information aggregated further with subnational geographical breakdown as requested, as this is personal information. Section 39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA) renders it a criminal offence to disclose information held by the Statistics Board for statistical purposes that would identify an individual. As we are prohibited by law from publishing statistics in which individuals can be identified, we find that Section 44(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) applies. Section 44 is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied. This is also in line with our disclosure control policy: Policy on protecting confidentiality in tables of birth and death statistics.