FOI reference: FOI-2025-2650
You asked
I would appreciate it if you could provide the following information for the last three calendar years (2022, 2023, and 2024), with data broken down by month where possible:
- The average time (in days) taken to issue a death certificate from the date of death for each year, broken down by month.
- The number of death certificates issued within 1, 3, 5, 10, and more than 10 days of a person’s death.
- The longest wait (in days) for a death certificate to be issued each month
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for the production of mortality statistics for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the death certificate at death registration. 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.
Our Impact of Registration Delays bulletin provides an annual account of the time between day of death and day of registration.
Table 4 of our Weekly Deaths Registered in England and Wales bulletin provides provisional information on the time between day of death and day of registration however, this information is only available from 2024.
Beyond the information in these existing publications, we have not produced the specific analysis you require. The requested information would therefore need to be created as a custom output. Monthly information on the time between the day of death and the day of registration for deaths occurring between 2022 and 2024, along with any other special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales may be available to order. Please note these services are subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs in line with our charging policy.
Please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk for more information.