FOI ref: FOI-2024-2084
You asked
How many bodies have been found in the following rivers between 2014 and 2024:
- River Nene
- River Ooze
- River Nar
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
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.
Causes of death are certified in most cases by a doctor, who records the sequence of medical conditions and relevant events leading or contributing to the death, based on the deceased's healthcare records and other available information, such as laboratory tests or post-mortem investigation. Some deaths are certified by a coroner who determines the causes of death following an inquest, based on all the available evidence. It is unusual for wider contextual factors such as the name of a river to be recorded on the death certificate, therefore we do not hold that information.
In case it is of interest, you can use our explorable dataset available on our NOMIS webservice to extract the number of deaths due to drowning or falling in to a body of natural water. Please see the following instructions for this service:
- 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, mortality rates or percentage of population for example.
- Select cause of death (ICD10 code search is available).
- ICD10 Codes: Drowning and submersion in natural water - W69; Drowning and submersion following a fall into natural water - W7.
- Select format (Excel or CSV for example)
If you have any queries about this data or need help with using NOMIS, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.