FOI/2021/2749
You asked
Please supply the following information:
The total number of UK deaths for the years- 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, and up until this month 24/07/2021- and percentage of what the deaths were caused by in each year.
A comprehensive, simple breakdown per month for each year of Total UK deaths - and what was cause of deaths ( e.g in percentage - e.g. 20% heart failure, flu 30%, 10% road traffic accidents, etc.)
Included in the month per month breakdowns, please supply a monthly breakdown of people dying from generel flu related causes and, in particular, the percentage dying per month registered as COVID-19 related - specifically for 2020 and 2021.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We only hold mortality data for England and Wales, which based on the information collected at death registration. For numbers of deaths registered in Scotland and Northern Ireland for causes other than COVID-19, please contact National Records of Scotland and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Centre.
Annual death registrations for England and Wales, for 2013 to 2020, are available to download via NOMIS. This is an interactive web service that provides numbers of deaths and rates by underlying cause, age group, sex and area of usual residence.
Underlying cause of death is coded from the death certificate using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). You can find the ICD-10 codes you require using the online lookup.
To create your own bespoke tabulations of mortality data within NOMIS, please follow these instructions.
- Select the geography (England and Wales, regional or by local authority).
- Select Age – All ages or 5-year age bands.
- Select Gender – Total or Male/Female
- Select rates – All deaths, rates or percentage of population for example.
- Select cause of death (ICD10 code search is available).
- Select format (Excel or CSV for example)
Death registrations data for 2021 are still highly provisional and we do not publish any further cause of death information until data are finalised, therefore we are unable to provide figures for 2021 for influenza alone. The first full release of 2021 death registration data will be published in July 2022 via the Deaths Registered Series and NOMIS.
Death registrations and proportion of deaths broken down by month and underlying cause, for England and Wales, 2016 to 2020 may be available to commission as bespoke analysis. Such services woud fall outside of the Freedom of Information regime and would be subject to legal frameworks, disclosure controls, resources and agreement of costs. If you would like to request this bespoke dataset, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk to discuss your enquiry further. Please note, there may be a charge for this work which would be subject to our charging policy.
Please note that we can only provide bespoke tabulations of deaths registered up to 2020; as mentioned above, data for 2021 are still provisional and cannot be requested on an ad hoc basis until the final data are published in July 2022.
We have also produced deaths involving COVID-19 by month for the UK, and leading causes of death by month for England and Wales, 2021; this information is available in our provisional monthly mortality analysis publication.
We have collaborated with the constituent countries to produce headline figures for deaths involving COVID-19 for the UK, 2020 and 2021. This information is available in our Provisional weekly deaths in England and Wales publication. You can access the datasets directly, here.
The weekly deaths publication also includes provisional numbers of deaths for respiratory disease, and flu and pneumonia combined for 2021. For 2020, this information is available here.
If you wish to discuss this request further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.