FOI/2023/4984
You asked
I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request information about all-cause mortality surveillance figures for England.
For all weeks covering the periods December 2019-February 2020, December 2021- February 2022 and December 2022-February 2023, please provide:
Observed number of all-cause deaths in all ages
Expected number of all-cause deaths in all ages
I understand that because of time delays in registration these numbers may vary from week to week, so please provide the most up to date information available in your response.
We said
Thank you for your request.
In Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional, we publish provisional data for all cause deaths. Data is available on a weekly basis from 2010 to February 2023.
As part of this publication, we also release the 5-year average for that week, which is how we would calculate an excess death.
Excess deaths = Observed - Expected
An expected death uses the 5-year average. For 2022 data we have used 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021. For 2020 and 2021 data, we use 2015 to 2019 as the 5-year average.
For more information on excess deaths and the 5 year average please use our blog: Understanding excess deaths during a pandemic.
2022 and 2023 data are still provisional and subject to change, this is to allow the inclusion of late registrations which are deaths referred for Coroner investigation. 2022 data will be finalised and published in our Deaths Registered Series in July 2023. 2023 data will be finalised and published in the same series in the summer of 2024.
We hope this publication will be helpful for your research, however, if this does not meet your needs, we can create a bespoke dataset for you. Special extracts and tabulations of data are available to order from the Health Analysis and Pandemic Insight (HAPI) Customer Service team. These extracts are subject to disclosure control, legal frameworks, resources, and agreement to costs under the ONS Charging policy.
If you would like to discuss this work further, or obtain a quote for this work, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.