Request

I was wondering if you might be able to assist in relation to a data collection that we are currently establishing on suicide in NHS staff at the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety at the University of Manchester. This is a de-identified data collection that seeks to inform prevention and support the wellbeing of the NHS workforce and has been commissioned by NHS England.

We requested clarification on 19 August 2025:

Please can you confirm the time period that this query relates to

We do not hold this information for all NHS Staff, we would only hold this information for NHS Staff who have chosen to contribute to the NHS Pension Scheme. Please can you confirm if this data would still be suitable for you.

You responded on 5 September 2025:

The National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety at the University of Manchester are in the process of developing a system and reporting process for NHS trusts to provide information if NHS staff die by suicide. We are requesting details on data held by NHS Business Services Authority (NHSBSA) to establish numbers of NHS staff who die by suicide. We understand this information may not be available due to not being collected and/or small numbers. Our aim is to understand what data is held. If you are not able to provide the data we would appreciate if you are able to inform us if the data is not held or if the data is held but numbers are too small.

· How many NHS Staff died by suicide in total over the 5 year period between 2020-2024

· How many NHS staff have died by suicide each year (2020-2024), - by year of death (not year of processing/recording by NHS Business Services)

· The role of those who died, by year of death (2020-2024) (e.g. clinical, doctor, nurse or admin – if known or how defined by NHS Business Services)

· How is cause of death established? i.e., death certificate, employer

We understand that this data will relate only for those that chose to contribute to the NHS pensions scheme.

Response

The NHSBSA does hold the requested information; however, we estimate that the cost of compliance with the request would exceed the appropriate limit under section 12 of the FOIA.

We estimate that the cost of complying with your request would exceed the non-central Government limit of £450. The limit has been specified in The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the NHSBSA holds the information, and locating, retrieving, extracting and checking the information.

Please see the following calculations which sets out the estimated cost for compliance with this request:

The cause of a Pension scheme member’s death is not something that is recorded centrally by NHS Pensions, or held in a way which would allow an easy search to take place. This information may exist in the documents held on the member’s pension record. This would involve manual interrogation of 113,237 member records, this would take a minimum average of 5 minutes per case which is a total of 9,436 hours and 25 minutes.

Please be advised that due to the way that the information is held by the NHSBSA, it is not possible to submit a refined request under the appropriate limit.

Please see the following link to view the section 12 in full - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/12

We do hold a yearly breakdown of deceased pension scheme members seen below:

2020 – 21,767

2021 – 21,450

2022 – 22,186

2023 – 23,587

2024 – 24,247

Advice and assistance

It is possible that NHS England may hold some or all of the information you require, as they publish workforce data/statistics, although we cannot guarantee this. They can be contacted at:

england.contactus@nhs.net

Please write 'Freedom of Information' in the subject line. If you have difficulty making a written request, please call the Customer Contact Centre on 0300 311 22 33.

NHS England PO Box 16738 Redditch B97 9PT Telephone 0300 311 22 33 Email: england.contactus@nhs.net https://www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/foi/

Data Queries

Please contact foirequests@nhsbsa.nhs.uk ensuring you quote the above reference if you have any specific questions regarding this response; or, if you feel you may be misunderstanding or misinterpreting the information; or, if you plan on publishing the data. Reusing the data and copyright

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact communicationsteam@nhsbsa.nhs.uk . This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement: “NHSBSA Copyright 2025”. Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated. Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.