FOI REF: FOI/2022/4551
You asked
I understand there is an ongoing investigation in Scotland regarding the excess deaths of 39 babies. I would like to know if there is any information available for the rest of the UK about the number of neonatal deaths from 2018 to 2022 & if the mothers were vaccinated during the pregnancy.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We are responsible for the production of mortality data for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the death certificate at death registration.
National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. Should you wish to request information pertaining to these countries, they can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
Our mortality data for England and Wales comes from the information collected at death registration. When an infant death is registered the COVID-19 vaccination status of neither the mother nor the infant is recorded.
We hold both stillbirth, infant mortality and COVID-19 vaccination data as separate data sets. We do not hold these combined to enable us to report about neonatal deaths and the vaccination status of the mother.
In order to create this information, we would be required to link our raw stillbirth or infant mortality data with raw vaccination data, quality assure the linked dataset to check it is fit for purpose to produce robust statistics, and then conduct statistical analysis to produce the requested information. This process would require a high level of statistical skill and judgement, involving the use of statistical expertise and experience to change the raw information held into the requested analysis. Public authorities are not obligated to create new information in order to answer Freedom of Information requests. This information therefore is not held for FOI purposes.
However, we are conducting a programme of statistical work that may be of interest to you in your research investigating the risk factors associated with pregnancy outcomes and COVID-19 infection, taking vaccination status into account. The first experimental statistics from that work have now been released: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19hospitaladmissionsbyvaccinationandpregnancystatusengland/8december2020to31august2021
This release focuses on hospitalisation of the mother during pregnancy as the outcome, rather than stillbirth; the exact outputs and statistics which will be developed and released through the remainder of the programme, and therefore exactly which datasets will be linked to produce them, are yet to be confirmed.
NHS Digital may be better placed to answer your enquiry for English Data. They can be contacted on enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk.
Public Health Wales may be better placed for Welsh Enquiries. They can be contacted at foi.phw@wales.nhs.uk.