Monthly death data from 1990 to 2005

You asked

Your website kindly has links and downloadable Excel Files for "Deaths registered monthly in England and Wales"  for 2006-2020 - see this link:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/monthlyfiguresondeathsregisteredbyareaofusualresidence

Please can you provide me with the figures for each year, broken down by months, as found in the above available Excel files, but for the years 1990 - 2005

If the regional figures are unavailable please would you supply just the totals, by month, for England and Wales for these years.

If you do not have these figure for any reason would you please:

a. Provide an explanation as to why the data is unavailable.

b. Offer some guidance as to where I might get hold of this information.

We said

Thank you for your request.

As stated in your request, provisional monthly death registrations are available for England and Wales for 2006 to 2020 in the Deaths registered monthly in England and Walespublication. This includes a breakdown by region, county, local and unitary authority, and London borough. These are monthly provisional data covering the month before release and do not include the most up-to-date figures on deaths registered involving the coronavirus (COVID-19); see our provisional weekly deathspublication.

The following ad hoc tables were created on commission in response to previous customer requests and may be of interest to you:

• Daily death occurrences by region, England and Wales: 1970 to 2014

• Daily deaths occurrences, England and Wales: 2015 to 2018

• Weekly death occurrences by region, England and Wales: 1982 to 1992

• Weekly death registrations by region, England and Wales: 1993 to 2018

• Monthly death occurrences by sex and age, England and Wales: 1993 to 2014

• Monthly death occurrences, England and Wales: 2001 to 2018

These ad hoc tables are based on finalised death registration data (not provisional).  Some of these tables are presented by the year that the death occurred as opposed to the year that the death was registered. Most deaths are registered within 3-5 days but for certain causes of death the registration delay is longer, this affects primarily deaths from external causes. More information about the impact of registration delays on mortality data is available here.  When looking at a time series of data, it is important that you consistently compare either occurrences or registrations.  

For us to fulfil your request and provide a comparable time series for 1990 to 2005, we would need to create bespoke analysis for you. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Public Authorities are not obligated to create information in order to respond to requests. We could create this for you as a bespoke ad hoc piece of analysis. Such services would be subject to legal frameworks, disclosure controls, resources and agreement of costs. We could either produce monthly death occurrences for 2019 or monthly death registrations for 1990 to 1993, as comparable data for these years are not readily available in the publications provided. Alternatively, you might wish to request the complete time series in one table.  

If you would like to request this bespoke dataset, please contacthealth.data@ons.gov.uk to discuss your enquiry further. Please note, there may be a charge for this work which would be subject to our charging policy.