You asked

​​How many people have died by suicide in age groups since 23rd March 2020 also figures from the previous two years.

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Thank you for enquiry.

We hold provisional suicide analysis for England on a quarterly basis, with the latest update including deaths registered up to December 2020. This provides the rate and number of suicides registered in England per quarter. The data from 2001 to 2019 are finalised, and the data for 2020 are still provisional. Please also see the reference tables accompanying this publication: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathscausedbysuicidebyquarterinengland. This provides suicides by 5-year age bracket in Table 2.

This publication explains that most suicides require an inquest, where a coroner must investigate the cause of death. The amount of time taken to hold an inquest causes a lag between the date the death occurred and the date the death is registered. We refer to this as a registration delay and registration delays for deaths caused by suicide tend to be five to six months on average. Because our data is based on death registrations, this delay means that most deaths recorded for 2020 so far would have occurred in 2019. More detailed information can be found in the publication. Our quarterly publication will be updated with 2021 data in the next quarter.

The following publication contains finalised suicide data for both England and Wales up to 2019: Suicide in England and Wales. This contains data analysed by sex, age, area of usual residence of the deceased, and suicide method.

This publication will be updated with finalised 2020 data in September 2021. This is to allow as many delayed registrations to be processed as possible before finalising the figures.