FOI Reference: FOI/2021/3418
You asked
This FOI is regarding Influenza across the UK from 2012 up to and including 2021.
Please could you provide for UK from 1 January 2012 up to and including the 30 November 2021:
The number of positive influenza cases
The number of hospitalisations due to influenza
The number of deaths due to influenza
The number of influenza vaccinations
Please could this information be broken down by calendar year and county.
Also, for London specifically, please could this information be broken down by calendar year and borough.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We are responsible for the production of mortality for England and Wales, this is derived from 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. Therefore, we do not hold the requested information for the whole of the UK. NRS and NISRA can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
With regards to hospitalisations, we do not hold up-to-date information on hospitalisations with detailed hospital admission causes. Our data on hospital episodes is obtained from the Hospital Episode Statistics published by NHS Digital with an approximate 3 month delay. This data is used to determine pre-existing conditions and general health of individuals, but not to analyse hospitalisations. NHS Digital would be better placed to answer your enquiry. They can be contacted via email at enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk, and by telephone at 0300 303 5678.
Additionally, we do not hold information on influenza cases. We are only notified of influenza following a death registration. If influenza was deemed to be the underlying cause of death or a contributing factor by a certifying doctor, then this would be published in our mortality figures. If an individual suffered from influenza and then recovered, then ONS would not obtain that information. NHS Digital may be able to provide this information
We also do not hold data pertaining to influenza vaccinations. You may also be able to obtain this via NHS Digital.
However, we do hold information regarding deaths from influenza for England and Wales.
We have produced a back series as part of our 21st century mortality series, which contains mortality data by ICD-10 code (cause), age and sex, 2001-2020, England and Wales. The ICD codes used to code Influenza are J09-J11. You can search this in column A of the following publication: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/the21stcenturymortalityfilesdeathsdataset
We also have annual data available by cause for the years 2013-2020. This is available as part of our explorable dataset available on our NOMIS webservice. This explorable data can be used filter mortality figures by local authority. Please see the following instructions for using this service:
- 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). J09-J11
- Select format (Excel or CSV for example)
You can find provisional numbers of deaths for influenza and pneumonia combined for 2021, in the weekly deaths publication in the 'weekly figures by cause' table. Please see rows 15 and 16. Whilst we do hold the raw data for deaths due to influenza, we have not yet produced analysis on deaths that were registered in 2021. This will be published as part of our Deaths Registered Series and on our NOMIS webservice once the data are finalised in July 2022.
If you would like this informaton broken down by county, this would need to be produced via our bespoke analysis route. 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, where appropriate). Such enquiries would fall outside of the Freedom of Information regime and should be made to: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.
If you would like to discuss this enquiry further, please feel free to contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.