To reduce deaths from malignant melanoma and skin cancers other than malignant melanoma.
For information on the definitions of what these indicators include, please see the relevant specification.
As of July 2022, users should be aware that the 8 indicators prefixed with 'Mortality from malignant melanoma' are derived from ONS mortality data relating to the 2020 calendar year in line with the rest of the compendium mortality indicator set. However, 2 of the 8 indicators prefixed with 'Mortality from skin cancers other than malignant melanoma' have been excluded from the 2020 refresh : 'Mortality from skin cancers other than malignant melanoma: indirectly standardised ratio (SMR), all ages, annual trend, MFP' and 'Mortality from skin cancers other than malignant melanoma: directly standardised rate, all ages, annual trend, MFP'. This is due to a substantial number of deaths from "squamous cell carcinoma where no site was specified" having been miscoded at source to International Classification of Diseases (ICD10) code C449 "Other and unspecified malignant neoplasm of skin, unspecified" which resulted in a substantial artificial step change in the series for both 2016 and 2017 and had the potential to mislead if published.
ONS are aware of the issue and have indicated that it will be resolved for the 2018 release. For each of the affected indicators, the versions based on the 2015 refresh remain available to download in the interim.
From 2016 onwards, mortality counts within the Compendium Mortality Indicator set are based on a bespoke extract taken from the Primary Care Mortality Database (PCMD) maintained by NHS Digital. PCMD is updated monthly using a file of death records from ONS and is continually subject to amendment.
It is already well established that late registrations have a small impact on counts. This bespoke extract may be taken at a different time to that of the mortality data published by ONS and as such this may cause some small differences between ONS and NHS Digital mortality figures for a given year.