2020 deaths from influenza, suicide, and cancer compared to the last 5 years

You asked

1. Please can you tell me how many people in the UK have died from influenza this year?

2. Can I also have data on how this compares to the last five years?

3. Can you also tell me how many people have died from suicide in the UK this year and how this compares to last year?

4. Also, how many people have died from Cancer (any) in the UK this year, compared to last year?

We said

Thank you for your request.

We are responsible for producing mortality statistics for England and Wales. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.

Unfortunately, we would be unable to provide you with a breakdown of the number of deaths from influenza, suicide, and cancer in 2020, as we have not yet undertaken analysis for this period. Therefore, in order to fulfil this request, we would need use a high level of statistical skill and judgement to create the requested analysis. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Public Authorities are not obligated to create information in order to respond to requests. Therefore, we consider this to be information not held.

A full breakdown of influenza and cancer mortality data for 2020 is expected to be available in our 'annual deaths registration' publication. This is provisionally scheduled for release in July 2021. Our annual suicides publication for 2020 is expected to be released in September 2021.

Influenza

We do hold provisional analysis, available from March to June 2020, grouped for both 'Influenza and Pneumonia' (J09 – J18) in table 5 of the following publication: Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales. Please note, due to the decrease in COVID-19 deaths, this publication will not be updated moving forward. In the event of an increase in the numbers of deaths from COVID-19, we will look into how we can continue to publish insights and analysis to inform our users.

Please see the following figures, representing March to June 2020:

• Influenza and pneumonia: England and Wales: 4582
• Influenza and pneumonia: England: 4426
• Influenza and pneumonia: Wales: 147

Influenza and Pneumonia mortality figures are available separately for 2013 to 2019 in our explorable datasets, which is available on our NOMIS webservice. Please see the following tables extracted from NOMIS, which provides influenza and pneumonia deaths for the past 5 years:

Mortality statistics - underlying cause, sex and age
ONS Crown Copyright Reserved [from Nomis on 28 September 2020]
Cause of death: JO9-J11 Influenza

Mortality statistics - underlying cause, sex and age
ONS Crown Copyright Reserved [from Nomis on 28 September 2020]
Cause of death: J12-18 Pneumonia

Suicides

Unfortunately, we will be unable to begin reporting on suicide deaths that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic until late 2020/early 2021.

Most of these deaths are subjected to an inquest, where a coroner must investigate the death. The length of an inquest can cause 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 statistics are based on the date of registration, therefore our annual Suicides in the UK release is based on 2019 death registrations.

We produce provisional suicide data for England on a quaterly basis, which available via the following link: Quarterly suicide death registrations in England. The most recent update to this publication includes deaths that have been registered from January to June in 2020. This is for deaths registered in 2020, and due to the registration delay described above, most of these deaths would have occurred in 2019.

Cancer

As mentioned previously, we are unable to provide cancer mortality statistics for 2020. However, a full breakdown of cancer statistics from 2013 to 2019 are available via the NOMIS webservice. Please see the following instructions to access this:

• Select the geography (England and Wales, regional or by local authority)

• Select Age – All ages or 5 year age bands

• Select Gender – Total or Male/Female

• Select rates – All deaths, rates or percentage of population for example

• Select cause of death (ICD10 code search is available). Please select cause codes C00-D48 (cancers)

• Select format (Excel or CSV for example)

If you would like to discuss your requirements further, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.