You asked
Please provide data from death certificates related to each individual death certificate for the following categories:
1. For the Deaths involving Influenza and Pneumonia (underlying or secondary cause): 121,879, which you gave here ...
... please provide the cause of death, the underlying cause of death, all entries in the sequence leading to death, and any contributing health conditions for each individual certificate of death record.
2. The same as 1. for every individual death record where COVID-19 was given as the underlying cause of death. If it is from the same person as in request 1. then there should be some row identifier to match them up.
In response, I would expect a spreadsheet with person 1, person 2, person 3 as the row identifier, and the cells/columns populated with the following fields: Cause of death, Underlying cause of death, Sequence leading up to death, Contributing health conditions. Where there is more than one entry, e.g. for Sequence leading to death, these should be concatenated.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry
Unfortunately, we would be unable to release the information requested. Even if we create a dataset containing raw data with direct identifiers removed, the information would still be identifiable. This is because, combined with other information, it could be used to identify an individual or to learn something new about an identifiable individual and both of these instances would be a breach of s.39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA). Consequently, this information is exempt from release under s.44 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), whereby information is exempt from release if the disclosure is prohibited by another enactment.
However, we do make death registration data available to approved researchers in a secure environment, for the purposes of carrying out statistical analysis. More information about how to apply to be an accredited researcher can be found here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/whatwedo/statistics/requestingstatistics/approvedresearcherscheme
Also, if you would like to obtain a copy of a specific death certificate, you can apply to the General Register Office online at https://www.gro.gov.uk/gro/content/certificates/login.asp
The following information may be of interest to you.
For January to July 2020, this information is available in our Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) publication. Table 6a shows deaths involving COVID and pre-existing conditions for ages 0-44 and then 5-year age band after the age of 45.
Data from July 2020 to April 2021 is available in our Monthly Mortality analysis publication. Here we use the multiple health conditions that can be recorded on a death certificate to identify deaths where there were pre-existing health conditions that contributed to the cause of death. 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. However, the fact that a pre-existing condition was recorded does not suggest that the deceased was likely to have died from that condition in the absence of the coronavirus (COVID-19) infection.
We also have the following publication Pre-existing conditions of people who died due to COVID-19, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics which provides deaths from January 2020 to December 2020 by two age groups in the dataset in table 2. This is the latest data available. We have also published Quarter 1 for 2021 with this dataset.
Within our Deaths Registered Weekly publication, we publish Deaths involving COVID-19 and Deaths due to COVID-19. We also publish influenza and pneumonia deaths.
We use the term due to when COVID-19 or due to influenza and pneumonia is the underlying cause of death and the term involving where it is a contributory cause. This information is updated every Tuesday and can found in Figure 2 of the publication, in "download by data".
Unfortunately the methods used in this publication are not suitable to identify pre-existing conditions in all causes of death, such as influenza and pneumonia. This method was developed to identify pre-existing conditions where COVID-19 was recorded as the underlying cause of death. We are currently working on the most suitable method to produce this information for other causes.
However, after the publication of the DR Series in July 2021 we can supply you with the figures for contributory factors which are recorded on part two of the medical certificate for cause of death. Part II gives details of any associated conditions that contributed to the death but are not part of the causal sequence.
More information of cause of death coding can be found here.
Information on Influenza deaths for 2020 with contributory factors, along with other 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). This service will be available for 2020 data in July 2021.
Such enquiries would fall outside of the Freedom of Information regime and should be made to: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.