Campaign to get Health Secretary Wes Streeting to keep his promise to rollout osteoporosis clinics to all NHS hospitals in England is to be launched in the Mirror
Older people are suffering devastating fractures because Wes Streeting has failed to keep his promise, campaigners say.
Before Labour came to power in 2024, Mr Streeting pledged to roll out specialist clinics at every hospital in England to check patients for osteoporosis that could lead to an imminent break.
Half of women over 50 will suffer fractures linked to osteoporosis, including broken hips that prove fatal for more than a quarter of patients within a year. The Royal Osteoporosis Society says 2,000 people die every year following hip fractures that these clinics can prevent.
In Opposition, Mr Streeting called delays to Fracture Liaison Services under the Conservatives a “betrayal of patients” and pledged to make roll-out one of his first acts as Health Secretary.
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On Monday the Royal Osteoporosis Society will run an advert in the Daily Mirror at the start of an advertising campaign across bus stations and the London Underground to call on Mr Streeting to end the delays to the roll-out of fracture prevention clinics.
TV doctor Dr Sarah Jarvis said: “The roll-out of Fracture Liaison Services for people with osteoporosis has been this government’s most frequently made commitment on women’s health, restated more than 60 times in Parliament and the media. But two years on, patients are still waiting for delivery. Over 2,000 lives are at stake every year, so delay costs lives.”
Some 3.5 million Brits have osteoporosis which causes bones to become fragile and break easily. It results in over 500,000 fragility fractures every year.
Half of women aged over 50 will suffer fragility fractures because of osteoporosis, as well as a fifth of men. These breaks can take place after simple, everyday movements, such as a cough, sneeze or hug.
Effective medication exists but two-thirds of people with osteoporosis miss out because of a postcode lottery for diagnostic clinics which are missing in half of NHS Trusts. Since Labour came to power an estimated 4,000 people have died following hip fractures that these clinics could have prevented.
The Royal Osteoporosis Society estimates that preventable fractures have cost the NHS and social care £150 million – more than double the cost of roll-out.
Half of patients who suffer a potentially fatal hip fracture had a previous fracture that these clinics could have identified, triggering a medication plan.
Society chief executive Craig Jones said: “Patients need the fracture prevention clinics promised by Wes Streeting. Delays to the implementation of this policy are costing lives.
“Every year ministers wait, another 2,000 people face a premature death after a devastating hip fracture these clinics can easily prevent.”
The society says that to meet a pledge to set up clinics at every NHS trust by 2030 then 24 trusts should be covered by now. Despite 63 re-commitments to the policy in Parliament and the media by ministers, no trusts have had an additional fractures clinic set up.
The society says full rollout of these clinics would prevent 74,000 fractures over five years and free up 750,000 NHS bed days. The Department for Health and Social Care has been approached for comment.
