FOI REF: FOI-2023-1414
You asked
Please could you advise what percentage of deaths in 2022 were adults who died in hospital please?
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for the production of mortality statistics for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from death certificates at death registration.
The latest release of the Deaths Data for England and Wales, which will include data for 2022, is due to be published later in October 2023 and it will include details of age breakdown by place of death.
As such, the information you have requested is considered exempt under Section 22(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, whereby information is exempt from release if there is a view to publish the information in the future. Furthermore, as a central government department and producer of official statistics, we need to have the freedom to be able to determine our own publication timetables. This is to allow us to deal with the necessary preparation, administration and context of publications. It would be unreasonable to consider disclosure when to do so would undermine our functions.
This exemption is subject to a public interest test. We recognise the desirability of information being freely available and this is considered by ONS when publication schedules are set in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. The need for timely data must be balanced against the practicalities of applying statistical skill and judgement to produce the high quality, assured data needed to inform decision-making. If this balance is incorrectly applied, then we run the risk of decisions being based on inaccurate data which would not be in the interests of the public. This will have an impact on public trust in official statistics in a time when accuracy of official statistics is more important to the public than ever before.
Once the latest data is published it may be possible to provide a breakdown for adults (18+) as a bespoke request. Such services are subject to legal frameworks, resources and agreement of costs. If you would like to request this bespoke dataset, please contact health.data@ons.org.uk to discuss your enquiry further. Please note, there will be a charge for this work which would be subject to our charging policy.