§ Mr. Foulkesasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will list, for the United Kingdom and for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, separately, the number of deaths from hypothermia for each of the last 10 years for which figures are available; and if he will state how many of each annual total were deaths of people aged (a) 65 years and over and (b) 80 years and over.
§ Mr. WhitneyThe table shows at(a) the numbers of deaths in the United Kingdom and its constituent parts where hypothermia was assigned as the underlying cause of death*. For England and Wales and for Scotland, but not for Northern Ireland, there are also statistics or the cases where hypothermia was mentioned on the death certificates, whether it was assigned as the underlying cause or not. The available figures are given at (b). A change in the international classification of diseases in 1979 means that the figures for 1975–78 for underlying cause are not comparable with those of later years. This change is not thought to have affected the statistics for mentions of hypothermia.
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Hypothermia deaths: (a) as underlying cause of death and (b) with mention of hypothermia on death certificate United Kingdom, England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, all ages, aged 65 years and over and aged 80 years and over, 1975–1985. 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985* (a) Underlying cause† United Kingdom All ages 40 54 41 42 518 319 377 411 287 329 415 65 and over 34 48 37 38 400 255 301 327 232 263 363 80 and over 20 27 16 17 220 116 160 178 126 134 195 England and Wales All ages 25 21 14 21 435 261 276 326 221 266 364 65 and over 24 20 14 18 333 207 224 258 179 215 315 80 and over 14 14 5 11 188 93 126 141 95 112 171 Scotland All ages 9 20 6 16 74 43 91 68 56 52 41 65 and over 5 15 5 15 60 36 69 54 44 39 39 80 and over 4 8 3 5 31 18 29 30 26 16 22 Northern Ireland All ages 6 13 21 5 9 15 10 17 10 11 10 65 and over 5 13 18 5 7 12 8 15 9 9 9 80 and over 2 5 8 1 1 5 5 7 5 6 2 (b) Mentions England and Wales All ages 511 585 613 708 824 596 685 671 539 555 657 65 and over 435 491 509 597 687 498 574 541 450 462 571 80 and over 250 271 280 327 374 237 326 319 261 257 336 Scotland All ages 150 228 158 205 259 199 254 196 179 176 153 65 and over 114 186 133 163 202 160 199 163 139 141 140 80 and over 65 83 72 74 95 68 87 72 78 66 74 * Figures for 1985 are for first half of year only ie January 1-June 30 (provisional) † 1975–1978 International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 8th Revision code 788.9 (pt) 1979–1985 ICD 9th Revision 991.6 and 778.3 England and Wales, Northern Ireland E901 and 778.3 Scotland