Smoke inhalation and deaths of police officers in the latest five years

You asked

Please provide data for the last five years up to April 2020 (presume these follow the fiscal year) or later if available for:

1. Number of police officers who have suffered smoke inhalation from entering building fires inc domestic fires?
2. Number of police officers who sadly lost their lives from entering building fires inc domestic fires

We said

Thank you for your response.

We are responsible for the provision of mortality data for England and Wales.  Incidence data, the Health and Safety Executive or NHS Digital may be better placed to answer your request. They can be contacted at InformationRequest@hse.gov.uk and enquiries@nhsdigital.nhs.uk respectively.

Our mortality data comes from the information collected at death registration. All of the conditions mentioned on the death certificate are coded using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). From all of these causes an underlying cause of death is selected using ICD-10 coding rules. The underlying cause of death is defined by WHO as:

a) the disease or injury that initiated the train of events directly leading to death, or

b) the circumstances of the accident or violence that produced the fatal injury

Numbers of deaths from exposure to smoke, fire and flames can be identified using ICD-10 codes X00-X09.

Deaths of police officers are assigned one of the following occupation codes:

There were nine deaths registered in England and Wales between 2001 and 2019 where the occupation code was one of the above and the underlying cause of death was exposure to fire, smoke or flames (based on persons of working age, between 20 to 64 years old).  Unfortunately, it is not possible for us to differentiate between the type of fire, as we do not hold this information.

Provisional 2020 mortality data is published in the Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales publication. However, we do not publish cause of death or occupation for provisional figures. This will be available in July 2021, after the 2020 death registrations have been finalised. Consequently, this information is considered exempt according to Section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, whereby information is exempt from release if there is a view to publish the information in the future.

This exemption is subject to a public interest test. Whilst we recognise the desirability of information being freely available, we also acknowledge that public authorities must have the freedom to be able to determine their own publication timetables. This allows them to deal with the necessary preparation, administration, and context of publication. Furthermore, public interest is best served through the public having confidence that the information published by ONS is accurate and final. Release on an ad-hoc basis would not achieve this aim and will cause unnecessary confusion if they were to be misrepresented. In this case, exempting the information clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

You might also be interested in the following tables, which are available on our website, however they do not include underlying cause of death:

Deaths Registrations by occupation code, 5-year age group and sex, 2018, England and Wales

Deaths registered, by occupation code, 5-year age group and sex, 2011 to 2017, England and Wales                                                                                                            

General mortality data is available in the Deaths Registered Series publication or from NOMIS.  The most recent data available is for the calendar year 2019.