Deaths from COVID-19 only in Milton Keynes

You asked

​​Can you tell me under the freedom of information act. How many deaths have been in Milton Keynes hospital due to COVID-19 alone, so the person had no underlying health conditions.

We said

Thank you for your request.

We are responsible for the provision of 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.

In order to provide information to you specifically for COVID-19 deaths aggregated to local authority level with no underlying health conditions, we would need to create bespoke analysis, which we are not obligated to do under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Furthermore, if we were to create this, we would be unable to release this information, as this analysis would produce small figures that would be disclosive.

Section 39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA) makes it an offence to release personal information. Personal information is any information held by the Board for statistical purposes that would identify an individual or a body corporate. This includes individuals that are deceased. Because disclosure is prohibited by another enactment, s.44 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) applies.

However, please see the following information which may be helpful:

Deaths involving COVID-19 with no underlying cause

We have been producing Deaths involving COVID-19, England and Wales in the response to COVID-19. This publication provides a greater insight into the leading underlying causes of death groups for deaths occurring in England and Wales between March and June 2020.

We define a pre-existing condition here as the last health condition mentioned on the first part of the death certificate when it came before the coronavirus (COVID-19) or was an independent contributory factor in the death, mentioned in part II. Where only COVID-19 was recorded on the death certificate, or COVID-19 and subsequent conditions caused by COVID-19 were recorded, we refer to these deaths as having "No pre-existing conditions".

Of the 50,335 deaths that occurred in March to June 2020 involving COVID-19 in England and Wales, 45,859 (91.1%) had at least one pre-existing condition, while 4,476 (8.9%) had none. COVID-19 deaths where there was no pre-existing condition between March and June 2020 are included below, this can be found on table 5.

• No pre-existing condition: England and Wales – 4476
• No pre-existing condition: England – 4169
• No pre-existing condition: Wales – 294

Provisional monthly death registration data for England and Wales, broken down by sex, age and country are now available in this monthly publication: Monthly mortality analysis, England and Wales. This publication contains data from July onwards and includes deaths due to COVID-19 and leading causes of death. Leading causes is also available on table 11 and includes figures for the five-year average.

This publication is currently paused. However, we are looking to publish this information again in the future.

Deaths involving COVID-19, by local authority and health board

We have published Death registrations and occurrences by local authority and health board. Mortality data is available for Milton Keynes here. In the tables labelled 'Registrations – Pivot table' and 'Occurrences – Pivot table', you can see how the mortality figures vary week on week, using the drop-down toggle and filtering on the week number and cause of death options.

For clarity: The filter/drop-down on the pivot tables for 'All-causes' does not contain COVID-19 deaths. By default, both options are ticked. If you were to untick the COVID-19 option it would deduct from the total deaths, leaving you with deaths from all other causes. Additionally, if both were ticked and you unticked All-causes, it would leave you with the total number of COVID-19 deaths.

I have filtered this for you and provided the total number of deaths in all Milton Keynes below:

We also provide a facility via customise my data, deaths can be filtered by week and location.

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