FOI Reference: FOI/2022/4007
You asked
Please provide the following information:
1. Number of deaths in the UK recorded as suicide within the past 7 years (2015 to present)
2. A break-down of the above into Male & Female. Age range (15-20, 21-25, 26-30 etc)
3. Number of deaths in the UK classified as suicide or undetermined intent where occupation is of those listed below within the past 7 years (2015 to present).
Medical students
Nursing students
Doctors
Nurses
Health care assistants
4. A break down of the above into Male & Female. Age range (15-20, 21-25, 26-30 etc)
5. A break down of all data into ethnicity where possible
FOR ALL DATA:
Annual data split into months (e.g. 10 in jan, 7 in feb etc : total in 2020=x)
Where possible, the details of the profession stored (e.g. cardiologist, band 5 nurse etc..)
I would also like to request the following information:
Number of doctors being investigated by the GMC in the past 10 years (report annually, e.g. 25 in 2020)
These numbers split by ethnicity
These numbers split by gender
These numbers split by specialty where possible (e.g cardiology)
Number of those being investigated with death classified as suicide or undetermined intent of doctors (e.g 4 suicides in 2015 while under GMC investigation)
We said
Thank you for your enquiry,
UK Suicide data
We are responsible for the production of mortality data for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the death certificate at death registration. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
We do hold some historic UK data regarding suicides, but from 2019 onwards our data relates to England and Wales only. The definition of suicide includes both intentional self-harm and event of undetermined intent. The statistics on number of suicides, sex and age group breakdown for England and Wales can be found here. We produce data by 5-year age band.
Should you have any questions regarding Scottish or Northern Irish data, please contact NRS and NISRA at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
Suicides by occupation in England and Wales
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). Full lists of occupations used in the analysis are reported in the accompanying data tables, and descriptions of these can be found in ONS Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Hierarchy. The report is structured so that it describes larger categories of occupations before moving on to describe risk in specific occupations.
We are unable to provide specific occupations such as cardiologist or specific grade of nurse, as the SOC Hierarchy does not classify occupations to this level.
We hold the following analysis for England and Wales for 2011 to 2015: Suicide by occupation, England - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk). We will be publishing an update to this publication looking at 2016 to 2020 later this year.
We also hold this user-requested dataset Suicide by occupation, England and Wales, 2011 to 2020 registrations - Office for National Statistics. 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.
Ethnicity
Ethnicity is not recorded on the death certificate; our recent publications have linked census 2011 data to mortality data to produce the analysis.
We have published suicide by ethnicity data based on using a census linked dataset, Mortality from leading causes of death by ethnic group, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk). Information on deaths involving suicide can be found in table 8.
Unfortunately, we do not hold analysis showing suicides by ethnicity, age, sex, and occupation for England and Wales.
Custom Data requests
Unfortunately, we do not publish suicides as a monthly output, nor do we publish with your specifically requested age bands and sex. However, if the above publications do not meet your needs, we can produce this as a custom output for you.
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 the HALE Customer services team on: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.
GMC investigations
As ONS mortality data is taken from the death certificate, investigations by the General Medical Council (GMC) are not recorded. Therefore, this information is not held.
The GMC would be better placed to assist you with you with your enquiry. They can be contacted at gmc@gmc-uk.org or by telephone 0161 923 6602.