You asked
Please could you provide the statistics on the number of deaths caused by Carbon Monoxide each year across England and Wales, between the years 1990-2017.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We are responsible for publishing mortality statistics for deaths registered England and Wales.
Cause of death is coded using the International Classification of Diseases. From 1979 to 2000, version 9 (ICD-9) was used to code cause of death, then from 2001 onwards, version 10 (ICD-10) has been used. Causes of death are not directly comparable across different versions of the ICD.
Deaths where the underlying cause is assigned to an external cause are also assigned at least one nature of injury code (Chapter XIX) or a post-procedural code not within Chapter XIX. This means it is possible to have more than one nature of injury code for a single death. However, it is necessary to select which one of the nature of injury codes is to be identified as the one causing death. This one cause code is referred to by ONS as the secondary cause. More information is available in section 9.2 of the user guide to mortality statistics: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/methodologies/userguidetomortalitystatisticsjuly2017
Using ICD-9, deaths from Toxic effects of Carbon Monoxide would be given a nature of injury code of 986. Using ICD-10, deaths from Toxic effects of Carbon Monoxide would be given a nature of injury code of T58.
The total number of deaths by age, sex and secondary cause of death for 2006-2017 are available from Table 6 of deaths registered in England and Wales (Series DR) :
There is also an ad-hoc on our website for 2011 to 2017 showing the total number of deaths where Toxic affects of Carbon Monoxide were mentioned on the death certificate:
However the ad-hoc only includes deaths with specific ICD codes as the underlying cause, rather than all mentions of ICD code T58 on the death certificate. Furthermore, looking at mentions rather than secondary causes means that carbon monoxide may not necessarily have been the cause of the death, but it was mentioned on the death certificate as it was considered relevant to the death.
Other special extracts and tabulations of deaths data for England and Wales are available (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreement of costs, where appropriate). You can contact the team directly at: vsob@ons.gov.uk