You asked
Please provide the latest information for suicides in England and Wales
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
We will be unable to begin reporting on suicide deaths, that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, until late 2020 or early 2021.
We produce provisional suicide data for England on a quarterly basis, with the latest update including deaths from January to June 2020. The publication explains that the majority of suicides require an inquest, where a coroner must investigate the cause of death. The amount of time taken to hold an inquest causes a lag between the date the death occurred and the date the death is registered. We refer to this as a registration delay and registration delays for deaths caused by suicide tend to be five to six months on average. Because our data is based on death registrations, this delay means that most deaths recorded for 2020 so far would have occurred in 2019. More detailed information can be found in the publication.