You asked
I would like to know the number of deaths by suicide in children aged under 18 between March 2020 - March 2021?
Please could you break this number down for each age group:
Under 10
10-15
We said
Thank you for your request.
Unfortunately, we do not hold analysis showing suicide figures for both England and Wales split from March 2018 to March 2019 and March 2019 to March 2020, as the analysis in our Suicides in England and Wales publication is by calendar year. Additionally, we do not hold this information split into the specific age groups you have requested.
The National Statistics definition of suicide includes all deaths from intentional self-harm for persons aged 10 years and over and deaths caused by injury or poisoning where the intent was undetermined for those aged 15 years and over. Further information on the definition can be found in the Suicide rates in the UK QMI. Therefore, we can only provide these statistics for those aged 10 and above.
We produce data split into five-year age groups from 10-14 years and five-year groups onwards. Please see the following link to Suicides in England and Wales with finalised data available up to 2019. Annual suicide totals are published in table 1, suicides by five-year age group can be found in table 5. We do not yet hold a finalised breakdown of suicides for England and Wales in 2020. However, we will be publishing this data once we have finalised the annual mortality figures later this year.
Most suicides require an inquest, where a coroner investigates the death. The amount of time it takes to hold an inquest causes a lag 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.
Our most up-to-date analysis for suicide data for England only are our quarterly provisional figures, accessible via the following link: Deaths caused by suicide by quarter in England; 2001-19 registrations and provisional data for 2020. This provides suicides that have been registered from January 2001 to December 2020, along with age and sex breakdowns on table 2. Age is also split by five-year age group starting from 10-14. Please note, due to the aforementioned registration delay, a large number of these deaths registered in 2020 would have occurred in 2019.
If you would like to discuss your request further, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.