FOI Ref: FOI/2022/4059
You asked
Please supply the following information:
1) The number "per year" of suicides in Wales over the last 20 years. Please break this down by age if possible.
2) The number of deaths of individuals who died with just COVID-19 with no other factors. Plus the number of people that died after being vaccinated and at whatever stage in the vaccination program they were at. Also how many died that were unvaccinated?
3) The number of deaths of those who died as a direct result of taking the COVID-19 vaccination
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
Suicides in Wales
Numbers of suicides, by sex and five year age group, for England and Wales, 1981 to 2020 are available in our Suicides in England and Wales publication. The number of suicides registered in Wales, by sex and five-year age group, for the period 1981 to 2020, are available in Table 7.
Please note, suspected suicide deaths require an inquest, where a coroner investigates the death. The amount of time it takes to hold an inquest causes a delay between the date of death and the date of death registration, referred to as a registration delay. Registration delays for deaths caused by suicide tend to be 5 to 6 months on average. More information about the impact of registration delays is available in our Impact of registration delays on mortality statistics in England and Wales article. Therefore, the latest data available are for 2020. This publication will be updated to include figures for 2021 in September 2022.
As such, the information you have requested for suicides in Wales in 2021 is 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. 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 is arguably not in the public interest. 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.
Deaths due to COVID-19 where no pre-existing condition was recorded
Numbers of deaths due to COVID-19, where no pre-existing condition was recorded, are available in our monthly mortality analysis publication. You can access the dataset here.
Health conditions are recorded on the death certificate only if the certifying doctor or coroner believed they made some contribution to the death, direct or indirect. The death certificate does not include all health conditions from which the deceased might have suffered if they were not considered relevant.
The death certificate (Annex A (PDF, 224KB)) used in England and Wales is compatible with that recommended by WHO. It is set out in two parts. Part I gives the condition or sequence of conditions leading directly to death, while Part II gives details of any associated conditions that contributed to the death but are not part of the causal sequence.
Deaths by vaccination status
Our latest Deaths involving COVID-19 by vaccination status, England publication presents deaths occurring between 1 January 2021 and 31October 2021. This analysis shows vaccination status within or exceeding 21 days, as this is the timeframe whereby the vaccine is deemed most effective.
The data are for England only, as vaccinations data for Wales is not yet available to be linked to the mortality dataset and the Public Health Data Asset (PHDA) dataset covers England only. More information is available in the methods and measuring the data section of the publication.
Deaths due to adverse reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine
The number of deaths where an adverse reaction to the COVID vaccine was mentioned on the death certificate in England and Wales can be found in Table 12 and Table 13 of our Monthly Mortality Analysis dataset. There have been 27 deaths due to adverse reaction to vaccine, which is identified using ICD code U12.9.
If you wish to discuss your enquiry further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.