FOI REF: FOI/2022/4546
You asked
Please advise what types of data does ONS hold, if any, on:
1. Mental health of NHS staff and suicides by NHS staff
a. The mental health of NHS staff
b. Suicides and undetermined deaths of NHS staff
2. Paramedic suicides
Regarding the data held by ONS on suicides of paramedics, does ONS hold any further details about this sub group?
For example, does ONS hold data on which coroners' offices made the determination of suicide or ruled that the cause of death was undetermined?
If ONS can provide an analysis of paramedic deaths by region or the number of paramedic deaths reported by different coroners offices, please disclose this data.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
Unfortunately, we do not hold information on the mental health of NHS staff, as we do not collect this data. NHS Digital may be better placed to help you, they can be contacted via email at enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk, and by telephone at 0300 303 5678.
Suicides by occupation in England and Wales
Occupation is reported at the time of death registration by the informant. Data on occupation is coded using the Standard Occupation Classification (SOC 2010). In all, there are 9 major groups of occupations (for example, skilled trades occupations); 25 sub-major groups (for example, skilled construction and building trades); 90 minor groups (for example, building finishing trades); and more than 350 individual occupations (for example, painters and decorators). The recorded occupation likely reflects the deceased's main lifetime occupation or their occupation at the time of death. The occupation hierarchy tool allows exploration of the hierarchy of the SOC 2010 classification. We are unable to determine whether the role was specifically an NHS role, we cannot determine what organisation the deceased worked for at the time of death as this is not supplied to us.
For your query, please refer to the following analysis: Suicide by occupation, England and Wales, 2011 to 2021 registrations. Occupational code 22 (table 2) and 221 (table 3) provides data for 'Health professionals'. Smaller health occupation groups can be found in table 4.
Please note that the numbers detailed in this publication cannot be used to ascertain the risk of suicide among occupations. Differences in numbers of deaths may merely reflect the underlying population structure as opposed to differences in risk.
2022 suicide data
Our statistics are typically based on the date of registration, therefore our latest annual Suicides in England and Wales release is based on 2020 death registrations.
The majority of suicides require an inquest, where a coroner investigates the death. The amount of time it takes to hold an inquest causes a lag between the date of death and the date of death registration, referred to as a registration delay. Registration delays for deaths caused by suicide tend to be 5 to 6 months on average.
We do produce provisional headline suicide data for England on a quarterly basis, with the latest update including deaths that have been registered to the end of June 2022. Due to the registration delay described above, most of these deaths would have occurred in earlier years.
Paramedic suicides
Paramedic suicides can be found in the suicides by occupation publication previously mention, please see table 4 for deaths coded to 3213.
Unfortunately, breaking down suicides or deaths of undetermined intent of paramedics by region would be disclosive owing to the small number involved. Therefore, we are unable to release this requested information.
This is consistent with our policy on protecting confidentiality in death statistics and also compliant with Section 39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA), which renders it a criminal offence for the Statistics Board (ONS) to release personal information collected for statistical purposes. Personal information is any information held by ONS that would identify a body corporate or an individual, including those who are deceased.
As disclosure is prohibited by another enactment, this information is exempt from release under Section 44(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
We are also unfortunately unable to disclose the number of paramedic deaths by Coroner's Office. As Coroner's Offices are bodies corporate, this would also be considered personal information under Section 39 of the SRSA. We also have similar concerns over this level of disaggregation leading to the disclosure of personal information of individuals. This information therefore is also exempt from disclosure under Section 44(1) of FOIA.
If you would like to discuss any of the statistics provided, please contact health.data@ons.gov.uk.