Osteoporosis is known as the ‘silent killer’ (Image: Getty)
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has renewed his pledge to the Sunday Express to end a postcode lottery causing people to die early after opportunities to identify osteoporosis are missed.
The Government has doubled-down on its commitment to deliver specialist bone clinics across England by 2030 which will test people suffering a fracture for the potentially lethal bone disease.
Campaigners were dismayed when instructions to roll-out the clinics, called fracture liaison services (FLS), were not included in the NHS planning guidance that sets priorities for the health service.
This fuelled fears the minister was rowing back on his pre-election promise to the Sunday Express Better Bones campaign, in conjunction with the Royal Osteoporosis Society (ROS), to expand the use of FLS to every integrated care board in England and achieve 100% coverage by 2030.
But a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson has now told us: “We remain committed to rolling out FLS across every part of the country by 2030.
“That is what the Secretary of State promised before the election, and what he is delivering.
“In the meantime, we are investing in 13 high-tech Dexa scanners, which are expected to provide an extra 29,000 scans to ensure people with bone conditions get diagnosed earlier.”
Craig Jones, chief executive of the ROS, said: “We’re pleased and encouraged that ministers have confirmed in Government their plan to roll out these fracture services to every area by 2030.
“We’ll do all we can to support them in delivering it, so this can be a great example of prevention in action under the new Government.”
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Campaigners had warned patients and the NHS faced a “disaster”. Only half of NHS Trusts in England have a fracture liaison service – which the ROS says leaves “90,000 people without treatment and vulnerable to life-threatening fractures”. It claims “more than 1,100 people have already died from preventable hip fractures since the Health Secretary promised to end the postcode lottery for life-saving osteoporosis services in May last year”.
Emma Clark, a professor of clinical musculoskeletal epidemiology and a consultant rheumatologist, was disappointed at the absence of instructions to put the services in place in the most recent guidance, saying: “This is disastrous for people with broken bones and osteoporosis. The NHS is missing out on saving lives and money, and people will needlessly experience the devastation that follows broken bones.
“This decision is a false economy and exceedingly disappointing for all older people in our country.”
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Dr Tahir Masud, a consultant physician in geriatric and general medicine, said: “My colleagues and I are hugely disappointed that fracture liaison services have not been included in the 2025 NHS planning guidance. This service is the key in identifying patients at high risk of future fractures.”
Professor Nicholas Harvey, president of the International Osteoporosis Foundation, said: “It is extremely disappointing that provision for fracture liaison services has not been included in the 2025 NHS planning guidance. This is to the enormous detriment of the more than half a million older adults who will experience a broken bone in the coming year, with all the associated pain, disability and premature death.”