In 2018 there were over 40 thousand deaths caused by ischaemic heart diseases in the United Kingdom, making it the leading cause of death in that year. Since 2001 there has been a noticeable increase in the number of people dying from dementia or alzheimers, which caused 26.5 thousand deaths in 2018, an increase of almost ten thousand when compared with 2012.

Registered leading causes of death by age, sex and country, UK, 2001 to 2018

Mortality from leading causes of death by ethnic group, England and Wales, 2012 to 2019.

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) has updated the mortality profile.

The profile brings together a selection of mortality indicators, including from other OHID data tools such as the https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/public-health-outcomes-framework/data" class="govuk-link">Public Health Outcomes Framework, making it easier to assess outcomes across a range of causes of death.

For the January 2022 update, 2 new indicators have been added to the profile:

• mortality rate for deaths involving COVID-19, all ages
• mortality rate for deaths involving COVID-19, under 75s

COVID-19 was the leading cause of death in England in 2020, but the pandemic had a much greater impact on mortality in some areas than others. These indicators have been included alongside other indicators for leading causes of death in the mortality profile to provide a more complete picture of mortality for local areas in 2020.

If you would like to send us feedback on the tool please contact profilefeedback@phe.gov.uk.

Leading causes of death by age group and sex Source agency: Office for National Statistics Designation: Official Statistics not designated as National Statistics Language: English Alternative title: Mortality

Annual age-standardised and age-specific mortality rates by leading causes of death for England and Wales, 2001 to 2018 (Experimental Statistics)

In 1948, over a quarter of deaths recorded in England and Wales were caused by heart disease. The National Health Service was founded in this year in the UK and aimed at improving the health of British citizens.

This statistic depicts the number of deaths in Great Britain, which only includes England and Wales, sorted by main causes of death in 2011. In that year, 5,937 people in England and Wales died from infections.

Leading causes of death by age group and sex

Source agency: Office for National Statistics

Designation: Official Statistics not designated as National Statistics

Language: English

Alternative title: Mortality

There were 10,391 deaths registered in England and Wales for the week ending September 5, 2025, compared with 8,278 in the previous week. During this time period, the two weeks with the highest number of weekly deaths were in April 2020, with the week ending April 17, 2020, having 22,351 deaths, and the following week 21,997 deaths, a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. Death and life expectancy As of 2022, the life expectancy for women in the UK was just over 82.5 years, and almost 78.6 years for men. Compared with 1765, when average life expectancy was under 39 years, this is a huge improvement in historical terms. Even in the more recent past, life expectancy was less than 47 years at the start of the 20th Century, and was under 70 as recently as the 1950s. Despite these significant developments in the long-term, improvements in life expectancy stalled between 2009/11 and 2015/17, and have even gone into decline since 2020. Between 2020 and 2022, for example, life expectancy at birth fell by 23 weeks for females, and 37 weeks for males. COVID-19 in the UK The first cases of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom were recorded on January 31, 2020, but it was not until a month later that cases began to rise exponentially. By March 5 of this year there were more than 100 cases, rising to 1,000 days later and passing 10,000 cumulative cases by March 26. At the height of the pandemic in late April and early May, there were around six thousand new cases being recorded daily. As of January 2023, there were more than 24.2 million confirmed cumulative cases of COVID-19 recorded in the United Kingdom, resulting in 202,156 deaths.

There were 2,784 infant deaths in the United Kingdom in 2021, compared with 2,620 in the previous year. The number of infant deaths in 2020 was the fewest in the provided time period, especially compared with 1900 when there were 163,470 infant deaths.

Provisional data on death registrations and death occurrences in England and Wales, broken down by sex and age. Includes deaths due to coronavirus (COVID-19) and leading causes of death.

This statistic describes the percent distribution of disability-adjusted life-years in the United Kingdom among persons aged under ** as of 2012, by condition and disease. Cardiovascular diseases contributed to **** of all DALYs among those under 70 years of age. People with mental health problems have been found to have higher rates of physical illnesses than the general population. Mental health can cost up to ** billion pounds per year and is listed as one of the most common reasons to claim disability benefits in Britain.

Disability-adjusted life-years

Mental health disorders and cancers are among the highest in terms of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) in the United Kingdom as of 2012 leading to **** DALYs and **** DALYs, respectively. DALYs are calculated by combining the years of life lost due to premature mortality and the years lost due to disability caused by the condition. In high-income countries, chronic diseases contribute to high DALY values. For example, cardiovascular diseases are among the leading causes of death worldwide at **** million deaths in 2012. Chronic diseases can create indirect costs that can be a major hindrance in low-income families. Reduced income from loss of productivity, forgoing earnings from those that must care for the patient, and potential lost opportunity in young family members who leave school to care for the ill or to help household economy are indirect costs that chronic diseases can incur.

Neuropsychiatric conditions account for almost ** percent of the global disease burden. However, this value is suspected to be much higher due to the complex relationships between physical and mental illness. It is also quite common for those with mental health disorders to be experiencing more than one disorder. People living in Alabama and California have some of the highest levels of poor mental health in the country, at **** percent and **** percent of the population reporting this condition, respectively, as of 2012. In the United States, *** percent of individuals between 55 and 64 years of age have reported experiencing serious psychological distress.

A dataset providing GP recorded coronary heart disease. Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of death both in the UK and worldwide. It's responsible for more than 73,000 deaths in the UK each year. About 1 in 6 men and 1 in 10 women die from CHD. In the UK, there are an estimated 2.3 million people living with CHD and around 2 million people affected by angina (the most common symptom of coronary heart disease). CHD generally affects more men than women, although from the age of 50 the chances of developing the condition are similar for both sexes. As well as angina (chest pain), the main symptoms of CHD are heart attacks and heart failure. However, not everyone has the same symptoms and some people may not have any before CHD is diagnosed. CHD is sometimes called ischaemic heart disease.

Annual data on death registrations by area of usual residence in the UK. Summary tables including age-standardised mortality rates.

In 2023, the age-specific death rate for men aged 90 or over in England and Wales was 248.1 per one thousand population, and 215.1 for women. Except for infants that were under the age of one, younger age groups had the lowest death rate, with the death rate getting progressively higher in older age groups.

This publication of the SHMI relates to discharges in the reporting period February 2022 - January 2023. The SHMI is the ratio between the actual number of patients who die following hospitalisation at the trust and the number that would be expected to die on the basis of average England figures, given the characteristics of the patients treated there. The SHMI covers patients admitted to hospitals in England who died either while in hospital or within 30 days of being discharged. Deaths related to COVID-19 are excluded from the SHMI. To help users of the data understand the SHMI, trusts have been categorised into bandings indicating whether a trust's SHMI is 'higher than expected', 'as expected' or 'lower than expected'. For any given number of expected deaths, a range of observed deaths is considered to be 'as expected'. If the observed number of deaths falls outside of this range, the trust in question is considered to have a higher or lower SHMI than expected. The expected number of deaths is a statistical construct and is not a count of patients. The difference between the number of observed deaths and the number of expected deaths cannot be interpreted as the number of avoidable deaths or excess deaths for the trust. The SHMI is not a measure of quality of care. A higher than expected number of deaths should not immediately be interpreted as indicating poor performance and instead should be viewed as a 'smoke alarm' which requires further investigation. Similarly, an 'as expected' or 'lower than expected' SHMI should not immediately be interpreted as indicating satisfactory or good performance. Trusts may be located at multiple sites and may be responsible for 1 or more hospitals. A breakdown of the data by site of treatment is also provided, as well as a breakdown of the data by diagnosis group. Further background information and supporting documents, including information on how to interpret the SHMI, are available on the SHMI homepage (see Related Links). Information about the exclusion of COVID-19 from the SHMI can also be found on the same page. A link to the methodological changes statement which details the exclusion is also available in the Related Links section