FOI Ref: FOI/2021/3347
You asked
Please supply ONS statistics for self-harm in the UK for 2020-21.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We are responsible for the provision of mortality statistics for England and Wales. National Records Scotland (NRS) and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Unfortunately, we do not hold information on incidents of self-harm. Your request may be better placed with NHS Digital.
However, we do hold data relating to suicides in England and Wales if this is of interest. The latest available data is Suicides in England and Wales 2020. 2021 data will be published in September 2022.
We produce provisional suicide data for England on a quarterly basis, with the latest update including deaths from July 2021 to September 2021. The publication explains that the majority of suicides require an inquest, where a coroner must investigate the cause of death. The amount of time taken to hold an inquest causes a lag between the date the death occurred and the date the death is registered. We refer to this as a registration delay and registration delays for deaths caused by suicide tend to be five to six months on average. As our data is based on death registrations, this delay means that most deaths recorded for 2021 so far would have occurred in 2020. More detailed information can be found in the above publication.
For further information please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.