Registration of deaths data (FOI)

Request

Please advise how many deaths, since 2010, have been registered or recorded as either unexplained, inconclusive, sudden or any similar words when the Coroner or Medical Officer does not know when someone has died.

Response

All of the conditions mentioned on the death certificate are coded using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10).

ICD-10 Version:2016 (who.int)

The coded mortality data available up to end of December 2022 is coded to version 2014 of the ICD10 framework. From all these causes, an underlying cause of death is selected using ICD-10 coding rules. The underlying cause of death is defined by World Health Organisation (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

For cause of death as unexplained or unknown ICD-10 code R99 Other ill-defined and unspecified causes of mortality for adults and children would be used .  

Code R98 Unattended death would be used where the person died and the cause of death is unknown. 

If the cause of death was defined as Sudden, ICD-10 code R96 Sudden unexplained death in adult/Other sudden death, cause unknown would be used.

For Infants R95 would be used. 

Deaths where ICD-10 codes R95, R96, R98, R99 are the Underlying cause:

*Numbers rounded to nearest 5 

Source: Public Health Intelligence Mortality Database, from data recorded by Office of the Superintendent Registrar, and Viscount's Department.  

Where numbers are small, disclosure control has been applied to protect the privacy of individuals and numbers fewer than five are represented as '<5'. Therefore Article 25 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied. 

Information for 2022 is not yet available and is therefore not held. Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies.

Articles applied

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a)     it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b)     it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.

Article 25 - Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.

3)      In determining for the purposes of this Article whether the lawfulness principle in Article 8(1)(a) of the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018 would be contravened by the disclosure of information, paragraph 5(1) of Schedule 2 to that Law (legitimate interests) is to be read as if sub-paragraph (b) (which disapplies the provision where the controller is a public authority) were omitted.