FOI ref: FOI/2022/4188
You asked
I request the number of suicides in the UK from 1 January 2018 to 31st December 2019 and also I request the number of suicides in the UK from 1 January 2020 to 31st December 2021.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry regarding suicide data.
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. Therefore, we do not hold the requested data for the whole of the UK. Should you wish to obtain this data from NRS and NISRA, they can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
Our annual Suicides in England and Wales provides data for deaths from suicide, from 1981 to 2020. You can find annual figures for England and Wales in table 1 and England figures in table 2. The annul update for England and Wales 21 is expected to be available in September 2022.
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.
Therefore, our most up-to-date analysis for suicide data are our quarterly provisional figures for England, accessible via the following link: Deaths caused by suicide by quarter in England. This dataset provides suicides that have been registered quarterly from 2001 up to Q4 2021. Quarterly figures for England are held in table 1.
If you would like to discuss your request further, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.