We are planning some changes to our weekly deaths publication. From today, 5 March 2026, we will publish the tables in both the current format and a new format to allow users to familiarise themselves with the changes.
Summary of updates
- Reducing COVID-19 outputs
- Adding detailed age breakdowns to deaths for all causes
- New location categories for 2026 onwards: adding a new category for hospices and changing the care home definition to align with the Care Inspectorate definition
- Combining related tables and converting selected tables to long ("tidy") format
- Separating the data into two workbooks: finalised data for 2020–2024 and provisional data for 2025–2026.
- In addition, the tables will include only 2025 and 2026 provisional data. A static table with the finalised data (2020 to 2024) will be published on the NRS website.
A lookup table detailing the changes which were made to the way that weekly deaths statistics were published has been added to the new-format tables.
From 26 March, we will publish only the new‑format tables. If you have any comments or questions regarding these changes, please email vestatistics@nrscotland.gov.uk.
