Wes Streeting urged to end ‘postcode lottery’ of thousands missing out on vital treatment
No delivery plan published, funding earmarked or start date announced despite Health Secretary’s promise
Campaigners warn 2,500 people die following hip breaks for every year of delay (Image: Getty)
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has been challenged to deliver a plan to end a postcode lottery that has resulted in thousands of people missing out on vital treatment for osteoporosis by Christmas. Labour pledged ahead of the election to ensure that “fracture liaison services” (FLS) are available in every area of England, so people are tested for the potentially deadly bone disease when they first suffer a breakage.
There is mounting concern at the lack of action, with the Sunday Express praised for bringing this “injustice out of the shadows”. No delivery plan has been published, no funding has been earmarked, and no start date has been announced. Members of the House of Lords lined up to press for action in a dedicated debate on Thursday.
Conservative peer Lord Black of Brentwood said the country would have saved £60million if the fracture services had been rolled out in summer 2024.
Pressing the Health Secretary to invest in the services, he said: “You will not find many other treatment models that break even within just 24 months and deliver £1.88 for every £1 invested.”
Only half of NHS trusts in England have the services in place, and there concerns there may be no action until at least April 2027.
“Unless the bone plan emerges by the end of the year, it will be impossible to maintain belief across the sector that FLS will ever become a reality,” Lord Black said.
The Royal Osteoporosis Society warns that with each year of delay, “another 2,500 people die needless deaths following broken hips these clinics could easily have prevented”.
Lord Black pressed for action, saying: “It is not just about the money that is being wasted. Every year that we delay the FLS rollout, another 2,500 people die following broken hips, which FLS clinics could have prevented.
“That’s 2,500 mums and dads, grandmas and grandpas.”
He said the Sunday Express’s Better Bones campaign had “brought this injustice out of the shadows and achieved a consensus on the way forward”.
Conservative peer Lord Lexden warned of the cost of hip fractures to the taxpayer.
He said: “Today each hip fracture costs the health and care services around £28,000. Total expenditure, which now stands at some £2billion, is likely to reach £3.8billion by 2060 – virtually doubling the huge burden borne by our overstretched NHS.”
The Queen is the president of the Royal Osteoporosis Society which wants the full roll-out of tests (Image: -)
Labour’s Baroness Royall warned that “more than 2.5million women in England are living with the condition, and most do not know until they break a bone”.
She said a “national rollout plan cannot wait” and described the impact of the postcode lottery in stopping osteoporosis being diagnosed.
“A woman who slips and breaks her wrist in my area, the Forest of Dean, or in Cheltenham will be patched up in A&E and sent home, her osteoporosis undiagnosed and untreated,” she said.
Baroness Blake of Leeds responded for the Government, insisting the pledge to roll “out fracture liaison services to every part of the country by 2030” was a “genuine commitment”.
