You asked

Please provide:

1. The number of people who suffered a heart attack or stroke between 1st January and 30th June 2021, including those who died and who survived.

2.  The number of people who suffered a heart attack or stroke between 1st January and 30th June 2019, including those who died and who survived.

We said

Thank you for your request.

Our mortality data are derived from the formal process of death registration. We do not hold information on those who have suffered with stroke or cardiac arrests. Therefore, NHS Digital may be better placed to assist with this enquiry. They can be contacted by email at enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk.

2019 data

All the conditions mentioned on the death certificate are coded using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10) the coded mortality data available up to end of December 2019 is coded to version 2014 of the ICD10 framework. Stroke is coded under the ICD-10 code 'I64', Cardiac Arrest is coded under 'I46'.

We do hold mortality data by leading cause groups split by age up to 2020 in our death registered series.

However, we do not hold analysis specific to deaths from stroke and cardiac arrest, split from January to June 2019 and this would therefore need to be created as bespoke analysis. Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Public Authorities are not obligated to create information in order to respond to requests.

However, this may be something we can produce for you as a bespoke request. Special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). Such enquiries would fall outside of the Freedom of Information regime and should be made to: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.

In case it is of interest, annual mortality data by cause from 2013-2020 is available as part of our explorable dataset on our NOMIS webservice. This explorable dataset can be used to search for deaths by ICD codes I64 and I46 for 2019.

  • 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). I64 and I46
  • Select format (Excel or CSV for example)

2021 data

We hold provisional raw mortality data for deaths in 2021. However, we do not hold analysis showing deaths by stroke or cardiac arrest for the specified months of 2021. This analysis would therefore need to be created, which we are not obligated to do under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

Annual mortality data will be published once 2021 mortality data has been finalised in July 2022. Bespoke services will also be available for 2021 mortality data from this date.

If you have any further enquiries, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.