Mortality records privacy notice

​​Mortality Records / Primary Care Mortality Database

This notice provides details of how Leeds City Council collects and uses information about deaths. For more general information about how Leeds City Council uses your information, please refer to our privacy notice page.

What is this information?

Personal information about deaths in the city of Leeds is supplied to local authorities by NHS Digital and contains data provided at the time of registration of death along with additional GP details, geographic information and coroner details where applicable. Leeds City Council has a Data Access Agreement with NHS Digital and data are supplied in accordance with section 42(4) of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 as amended by section 287 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, and Regulation 3 of the Health Service (Control of Patient Information) Regulations 2002.

Information held includes date of birth, date of death, place of death, address of deceased, causes of death, age, sex, GP and practice, occupation and place of birth and more information on this dataset can be found at www.content.digital.nhs.uk/pcmdatabase.

Who uses this information?

The Leeds City Council Public Health Intelligence Team.

What do we do with this information?

This information is used for the purposes of statistical analysis, the monitoring of population health and demographic change in the county, and to inform the planning and commissioning (buying) of health services.

This information is used specifically to identify patterns and trends in death rates, life expectancy and premature death, highlighting differences between geographic areas, age, sex and other characteristics. It is also used to identify differences between areas and inform the planning and targeting of health, care and public health services. This information is used in the Annual Public Health Report, Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (which in turn informs the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy and local commissioning plans), and health needs assessments.

Other uses include the monthly monitoring of trends in death rates, the investigation of variations in mortality rates between GP practices, suicide audit and suicide prevention work, public place of death analyses and accident prevention work, monitoring of deaths from specific causes, the monitoring of seasonal patterns of death and excess winter deaths, the monitoring of child deaths, health and wellbeing and public health outcomes reports, community profiles, and population projections.

The term 'person identifiable data' relates to any data that could potentially identify a specific individual. The following fields in the Primary Care Mortality Dataset are classified as person identifiable:

• address
• postcode of usual residence of the deceased
• postcode of place of death
• NHS number
• date of birth
• date of death
• maiden name
• name of certifier
  
• name of coroner
• cause of death

These identifiable data are processed by Leeds City Council for specific purposes including the suicide audit (which gathers information on suicide to identify local hotspots and risk factors in order to inform work on the prevention of suicide and directing at-risk individuals into preventative and treatment services), the investigation of deaths in public places for accident prevention, and the seasonal monitoring of death rates. For other purposes, a pseudonymised version of the dataset is used.

No personal-identifiable information is published, and numbers and rates in published reports based on counts fewer than five are removed to further protect confidentiality and anonymity.

Why do we use this information?

This information is used to ensure that health, social care and public health services address local health needs and are focused on reducing health inequalities (differences in levels of ill health and premature deaths between groups and areas). We also use information from this dataset for work on suicide and accident prevention to identify local suicide hotspots and risk factors locally.

Who do we intend to share this information with?

This dataset will not be disclosed to anyone other than those stated above without permission, unless we have a legal reason to do so, for example disclosure is necessary to protect a person from suffering significant harm or necessary for crime prevention or detection purposes.

In the case of suicides and deaths with an open verdict, an audit process will be undertaken to gather further details from other public organisations. Under these arrangements we will contact acute hospitals, mental health services, GP practices, local coroner’s offices and local emergency services to gather further information about the circumstances of death and contact with services to inform suicide prevention work locally.

Whilst the dataset will not be shared with these organisations, we plan to share the NHS number of people with a cause of death of suicide or open verdict with relevant hospital trusts, mental health services, GP practices, local coroner’s offices and local emergency services so they can gather and return relevant information from their systems to gather the information required for the audit. The audit process will be supported by data sharing agreements and defined processes around information governance and security.

How do we keep this information secure?

Information is held in a secure database which is only accessible to named analysts within the Leeds Public Health Intelligence Team. The data is on a secure database server with user-based access which may only be accessed via the Council’s internal network which is protected by AES 256 encryption.

Data will be held be for deaths registered from 2006 onwards consistent with the data access agreement between NHS Digital, the Office for National Statistics and Leeds City Council.

What are your rights?

You have the right to request Leeds City Council to stop processing your personal data in relation to any council service. However, if this request is approved this may cause delays or prevent us delivering a service to you. Where possible we will seek to comply with your request but we may need to hold or process information in connection with one or more of the Council’s legal functions.

You have the right to opt-out of the Leeds City Council Public Health Intelligence Team receiving or holding your personal identifiable information. There are occasions where the Council and / or providers appointed to act on its behalf will have a legal duty to share information, for example for safeguarding or criminal issues. The process for opting out will depend on the specific data is and what programme it relates to.

If you have any questions about our use of these data, wish to request a copy of the information we hold about you, or if you wish to discuss your rights in relation to opting-out from these processes, please contact the Public Health team by email at PHI.Requests@leeds.gov.uk or by post to:

If you have concerns about the use of your personal data, the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) is an independent body set up to uphold information rights in the UK. They can be contacted through their website: www.ico.org.uk, through their helpline (0303 123 1113) and in writing to their head office: