FOI REF: FOI-2024-2021

You asked

Please could you name in descending order the twenty UK hospitals with the highest death rates in 2022 and 2023  in respect of inpatients over the age of 70? 

If the group is taken as a whole, excluding cancer, what was the most common cause of death? 

We said

Thank you for your enquiry. 

We are responsible for the production of mortality statistics for England and Wales. For figures relating to deaths registered in Scotland and Northern Ireland you will need to contact National Records of Scotland and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Centre, respectively. 

We hold information on the place of death as reported by the informant at death registration, which may be a named hospital, although this may not map reliably to a specific NHS Trust or organisational unit.  

We may be able to provide the number of deaths per hospital in England and Wales, but not rates, since calculation of rates requires details of the hospital’s patient activity which we do not hold.  

This along with other 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 in line with our Charing Policy. Please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk for more information.

NHS England may be better placed to answer this query, as they hold more relevant information about deaths in hospital. They can be contacted at england.contactus@nhs.net.