Prime Minister Andy Burnham is facing pressure from within Labour ranks to deliver on a pre-election pledge ensuring that people in all parts of England are checked for osteoporosis if they break a bone, so they do not miss out on potentially life-saving treatment.
Labour gathers in Liverpool this week amid calls to end the “scandalous postcode lottery” which means an estimated two-thirds of the 3.5 million people living with osteoporosis are “completely overlooked, untreated and defenceless”. Labour MP Chris Bloore has accused Whitehall of treating the bone disease as an “inevitable tax on getting old”.
MP calls for universal access to Fracture Liaison Services
Mr Bloore said: “I refuse to accept that. Osteoporosis is a manageable condition. Bone-strengthening medicines cost the NHS as little as £1 a week.”
But the Redditch and the Villages MP warned: “Right now, my local NHS trust doesn’t even have a Fracture Liaison Service [FLS], the specialised care teams that identify early warning signs, prescribe that £1 medicine and stop repeat breaks before they happen.”
Mr Bloore argues that universal access to FLS would “save 2,000 lives every single year”. He said: “In a typical constituency, around 5,000 to 7,000 people are living with osteoporosis… If a constituent falls and breaks a wrist in Redditch, the hospital fixes them up and sends them home, leaving them ticking like a timebomb for a catastrophic hip fracture.”
Warnings over hospital beds and hip fracture deaths
Mr Bloore claimed that at any time “7% of all hospital beds in England are occupied by people suffering from preventable fragility fractures” and warned that “hip fractures alone drain £2billion a year from the health service”.
Warning that a hip fracture is a “heart-attack-level event”, he said that “more than a quarter of patients die within 12 months” – and “working-class people in deprived communities face a 25% higher risk of fractures and higher death rates”.
The Sunday Express’s Better Bones campaign secured commitments from Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to roll out FLS, but the Royal Osteoporosis Society is concerned at the lack of progress.
Slow rollout and government response
Mr Bloore said: “Since July 2024, the number of FLS clinics across England has crawled from 80 to just 83. Around half of all NHS Trusts still offer nothing.”
“The Society of Radiographers has warned that these services cannot be established overnight and that, unless rollout begins this summer, the 2030 deadline will become impossible to meet.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We know osteoporosis can have a devastating impact on people's health, independence and quality of life. That's why our 10-year health plan committed to rolling out fracture liaison services across England by 2030. We are also investing in 20 new state-of-the-art DEXA scanners, building on the 13 already being rolled out. These new machines will help diagnose fragile bones earlier and prevent painful, life-changing fractures - particularly among older people and women, who are disproportionately affected by osteoporosis.”
