OFFICE FOR NATIONAL STATISTICS (ONS): Provide an assessment of the quality of the informal date of death contained within PDS death notifications, compared with formal date of death.
Data-sharing agreement from NHS Digital registers of approved data releases, 2014–2019. Evidence status: source reported.
- Organisation
- Office for National Statistics (ONS)
- Source reference
- DARS-NIC-48781-Z5C2L-v0.2
- Jurisdiction
- England
- Licence
- Open Government Licence v3.0, subject to NHS England terms and exclusions
Provide an assessment of the quality of the informal date of death contained within PDS death notifications, compared with formal date of death. Provide an indication as to whether the informal date of death is sufficiently accurate, and whether there would be benefit in providing this date to researchers in advance of the formal notification. To establish what advantages of timeliness this provision could bring, and whether there is any variation by age, gender and cause of death.
- Register reference
- DARS-NIC-48781-Z5C2L-v0.2
- Agreement period
- not published to no end date published
- For commercial purposes (as marked in the register)
- Not stated
- Release files listed by NHS England
- 1
Data approved
- MRIS - Bespoke
Objective, as published
Provide an assessment of the quality of the informal date of death contained within PDS death notifications, compared with formal date of death. Provide an indication as to whether the informal date of death is sufficiently accurate, and whether there would be benefit in providing this date to researchers in advance of the formal notification. To establish what advantages of timeliness this provision could bring, and whether there is any variation by age, gender and cause of death.
Expected benefits, as published
Expected measurable benefits to health and/or social care including target date: More timely notification of deaths to medical researchers will benefit the health and social care system by substantially reducing delays in the discovery-potential from record-linkage studies. Currently, research-teams may observe that a subject’s series of court appearances or benefits claims has ceased but cannot know assuredly - due to lateness of notification of fDoD - whether the explanation is that the subject has died or that s/he has been rehabilitated/employed. The research team has to allow about 2-years to account for late registered deaths, which delays deriving new knowledge, in this example about criminal sanctions or benefits.
Source: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/2019/http://content.digital.nhs.uk/media/23861/Release-Register-December-16---February-17/xls/Release_Register__December_16_-_February_17.xlsx. Captured 2026-10-30.
Limitations: Agreement as recorded in an NHS Digital register of approved data releases (2014–2019), retrieved from the UK Government Web Archive. That register lists releases made in its period and the agreement's purpose statement as it then stood; it gives no agreement dates, and the agreement may have changed since. Imported only where a paper quotes a reference no current register holds.