Deaths from respiratory disease from 2015 to 2020 and influenza and pneumonia in 2020

You asked

Thank you for all the detailed information you provide on deaths. Please may I request two further levels of detail.

1. In your dataset called 'Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional', you include a row for deaths were respiratory disease (ICD-10 J00-J99) is the underlying cause.

You also include a row where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate. With that in mind, please can you add a row where respiratory disease (ICD-10 J00-J99) was mentioned on the death certificate from 2015 to 2020. Or, kindly provide a separate table showing those numbers.

If weekly figures are unavailable, then monthly or annual figures will suffice.

2. Nomis provides two sets of data from 2013 to 2019:

a. Underlying cause of death

b. Leading cause of death

In 2019, 'respiratory disease (J00-J99 X)' was an underlying cause of 72,344 death. 'Influenza and pneumonia' was the leading cause* (LC28) of 26,342 deaths.

Please can you provide the same data for 2020: J00-J99 X as underlying cause of death and 'influenza and pneumonia (LC28)' as leading cause of death.

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

Question 1: Please can you add a row where respiratory disease (ICD-10 J00-J99) was mentioned on the death certificate from 2015 to 2020. Or, kindly provide a separate table showing those numbers.

At this present time, there are no plans to make any further changes to our Deaths Registered Weekly publication.

However, annual totals for deaths involving respiratory diseases is available from our NOMIS Webservice for 2013-2019 using ICD-10 Codes J00-J99. Please see the following table with this information:

Total deaths involving diseases of the respiratory system from 2015 to 2019

For weekly or monthly breakdowns of this data, we may be able to create a custom output. Information on weekly deaths by ICD10 code , along with other 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.

Data showing deaths from respiratory disease in 2020 are available in the Weekly deaths publication mentioned in your request on Row 18 of the 'Weekly Figures 2020' tab. Please note that 2020 data is still provisional. 2020 data will be available on NOMIS once data are finalised in summer of 2021.

Question 2: Please can you provide J00-J99 as underlying cause of death and 'influenza and pneumonia (LC28)' as leading cause of death for 2020.

As previously mentioned, the provisional number of deaths where J00-J99 was the underlying cause of deaths is provided in Row 18 of the 'Weekly Figures 2020' tab in the following publication: Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales.

Leading causes 2020:

Within our Monthly Mortality Analysis, you will find monthly and year to date data on leading causes, including influenza and pneumonia in table 11:

Within the Deaths Registered Weekly publication, we have weekly data showing deaths from influenza and pneumonia by both underlying cause and contributory factor (mention). The Download the data button beneath figure 2 will provide this spreadsheet. We have also pasted it below.

When we say that a death 'involved' influenza and pneumonia, we mean that influenza and pneumonia was mentioned anywhere on the death certificate, possibly along with other health conditions, not necessarily as the underlying cause of death.

When we say that a death was 'due to' influenza and pneumonia, we mean that influenza and pneumonia was the underlying cause of death, because it was either the only health condition mentioned on the death certificate, or it was the one that started the train of events leading to death.

Therefore, the deaths 'due to' influenza and pneumonia in the fourth row of the following table provides the data you have requested, broken down by week:

Deaths involving and due to Influenza and Pneumonia, England and Wales, deaths registered in 2020 and 2021