Stair falls now kill 934 people a year in England, and the whole rise is among the over-65s

Published 13 August 2026

Deaths from falls on stairs in England rose by 45% between 2013 and 2024. All of that increase happened among people aged 65 and over. Among the under-65s, the number of deaths actually went down.

We pulled the full ICD-10 W10 mortality series for England from the Office for National Statistics and set it alongside emergency hospital admissions for falls in the over-65s in every upper-tier local authority. The two measures point in opposite directions. Admission rates are improving. Stair deaths are at record levels.

Key findings

• 934 people died from falls on or from stairs and steps in England in 2024. In 2013 the figure was 642.
• 784 of those deaths, or 84%, were people aged 65 or over. In 2013 the over-65 share was 73%.
• Deaths among the over-65s rose by 68%, from 467 to 784. Deaths among the under-65s fell by 14%, from 175 to 150.
• The sharpest rise came in the 75 to 79 age band, where deaths more than doubled from 74 to 155.
• The official falls indicator moved the other way. The emergency admission rate for over-65s is classed by OHID as decreasing and getting better, at 1,958 per 100,000 in 2024/25 against 2,126 in 2010/11.
• England recorded 221,600 emergency falls admissions among over-65s in 2024/25. Of those, 143,874 were people aged 80 or over.
• Admission rates differ 2.7-fold between councils, from 3,035 per 100,000 in Liverpool to 1,125 in Plymouth.

Stair-fall deaths in England, 2013 to 2024

Deaths registered in England where the underlying cause was coded W10, “fall on and from stairs and steps”.

The series barely moves between 2013 and 2021, then jumps: 689 deaths in 2021, 804 in 2022, 948 in 2023, 934 in 2024. The last three years are the three worst in the series.

The rise sits entirely with older people

Stairs have not become more dangerous for the population at large. Every age band above 65 shows a substantial increase, while the under-65 count fell. Whatever is driving this is specific to older people living in houses with stairs.

Why admissions and deaths point different ways

Public health teams in England are measured on emergency hospital admissions for falls in the over-65s. That indicator is improving, and it is the number that gets quoted. It also counts every fall from every cause in every location, which means a trip on a level kitchen floor sits in the same total as a fall down a full flight of stairs.

Stairs-specific mortality is not in that indicator, or in any routine falls dashboard. It sits in the ONS cause-of-death files, where almost nobody looks. A falls prevention programme judged on admissions alone would appear to be working while stair deaths hit their highest recorded level.

The over-65 population grew by roughly a quarter across this period, so some of the rise reflects there simply being more older people. The 68% increase in deaths runs well ahead of that, and the under-65 comparison controls for anything affecting the population as a whole.

Emergency falls admissions in over-65s by local authority, 2024/25

All 151 upper-tier local authorities in England, ranked by directly standardised rate per 100,000 people aged 65 and over. This is the closest published proxy for where demand for home adaptations is concentrated.

What this means for stairlifts and home adaptations

The last official count of stairlifts in English homes was taken in 2018, when the English Housing Survey found 505,000 homes had one, about 2% of the stock, out of 2.3 million homes with at least one disability adaptation.

The last measurement of unmet need came a year later. In 2019/20 the survey found 1.9 million households contained someone who needed adaptations, and 53% of them, around a million households, were missing at least one adaptation they needed. Sixteen per cent of those households needed a stairlift. Eight per cent needed one and did not have it.

Both figures are six years old. No adaptations or accessibility report has been published since. Stair deaths are at record levels among precisely the group stairlifts exist to protect, and the last time anyone counted whether those people had them was before the pandemic.

Methodology

Mortality figures are deaths registered in England with an underlying cause of ICD-10 W10, extracted from NOMIS dataset NM_161_1, Mortality statistics: underlying cause, sex and age, using the “Deaths” measure for all persons. 2024 is the latest year available. England only. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland run separate registration systems and are excluded.

Admissions figures come from OHID Fingertips indicators 22401 (emergency hospital admissions due to falls, aged 65 and over), 22402 (65 to 79) and 22403 (80 and over), as directly standardised rates per 100,000, persons, for 2024/25, at upper-tier local authority level. City of London and the Isles of Scilly are not separately reported for this indicator, which is why 151 authorities appear rather than 153. Deprivation-decile breakdown rows were filtered out before ranking.

Limitations worth knowing about. W10 does not separate stairs inside a home from steps outside one, and it records nothing about whether a stairlift was present. Cause-of-death coding practice changes over time, and we cannot rule out that part of the step-up after 2021 reflects coding or registration changes rather than a genuine increase in events. Admission rates cover all falls rather than stairs alone, and they reflect local admission thresholds as well as underlying risk. Everything here is an association. None of it establishes cause.

Sources

• Mortality data: NOMIS, Mortality statistics: underlying cause, sex and age, Office for National Statistics.
• Falls admissions: OHID Public Health Profiles (Fingertips), indicators 22401, 22402 and 22403.
• Stairlift and adaptation counts: English Housing Survey 2019-20: home adaptations and the 2018-19 Adaptations and Accessibility fact sheet.

Licence and reuse

The dataset behind this article is free to download: stair-fall-deaths-and-falls-admissions-england.csv. It holds all three tables above, including the full 151-authority ranking.

The selection, structure and presentation of this dataset, being the parts in which Review Mobility holds copyright and database right, are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. The underlying figures remain the property of their sources on the terms below.

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Source: Office for National Statistics.

Office for Health Improvement & Disparities. Public Health Profiles. Accessed 13 August 2026. https://fingertips.phe.org.uk © Crown copyright 2026.

Suggested citation: Review Mobility (2026) Stair-fall deaths in England, 2013 to 2024. Analysis of ONS mortality data and OHID falls admissions. Available at: https://reviewmobility.co.uk/stairlifts/stair-fall-deaths-england/

We are happy to supply regional or single-authority extracts, or the data in another format, for anyone writing about this. If you think we have got something wrong, tell us and we will correct it and say so on this page.

This research was produced by Review Mobility and was not commissioned or paid for by any third party. It carries no affiliate links.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Stair Falls in England

How many people die from falling down stairs in England each year?

934 people died in England in 2024 from falls on or from stairs and steps, according to ONS mortality data coded to ICD-10 W10. That is the second highest figure on record, behind 948 deaths in 2023, and 45% above the 642 deaths recorded in 2013.

Are stair falls getting more dangerous for everyone?

No. The increase is confined to older people. Deaths among those aged 65 and over rose by 68% between 2013 and 2024, from 467 to 784. Over the same years, deaths among the under-65s fell by 14%, from 175 to 150.

Which age group has seen the biggest rise in stair-fall deaths?

People aged 75 to 79. Deaths in that band went from 74 in 2013 to 155 in 2024, an increase of 109%. The 90-and-over band also more than doubled, from 74 to 153.

How many older people are admitted to hospital after a fall?

England recorded 221,600 emergency hospital admissions for falls among people aged 65 and over in 2024/25. Of those, 143,874 were aged 80 or over. Women accounted for 140,137 admissions and men for 79,261.

Which local authority has the highest falls admission rate for older people?

Liverpool, at 3,035 emergency admissions per 100,000 people aged 65 and over in 2024/25. Plymouth had the lowest at 1,125 per 100,000, a 2.7-fold difference across England.

If falls admissions are falling, why are stair deaths rising?

The two measures count different things. The admissions indicator covers all falls from all causes and locations, and it is improving. Stair-specific deaths are recorded separately in ONS cause-of-death data and form no part of routine falls monitoring. A fall down a flight of stairs is far more likely to kill than a fall on a level surface, so the two series can move independently.

How many homes in England have a stairlift?

The most recent official figure is 505,000 homes, or 2% of the English housing stock, from the English Housing Survey Adaptations and Accessibility fact sheet covering 2018. Nothing more recent has been published. In 2019/20 the same survey found around a million households lacked at least one adaptation they needed.

Can I use this data in my own article or research?

Yes. The dataset is a free CSV download, reusable with credit to Review Mobility and a link to this page, under the licence terms set out above. We can provide regional or single-authority extracts on request.

Published 13 August 2026