Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to introduce early diagnosis services for osteoporosis.

On 6 January 2025, NHS England published the new Elective Reform Plan, which sets out a whole system approach to hitting the 18-week Referral-to-Treatment target by the end of this Parliament.

Part of the plan sets out funding to boost bone density DEXA scanning capacity, to support improvements in early diagnosis and bone health for conditions such as osteoporosis. This will provide an estimated 29,000 extra scans per year.

As announced in the Get Britain Working white paper, we are delivering the joint Department for Work and Pensions, Department of Health and Social Care, and NHS England Getting It Right First-Time (GIRFT) Musculoskeletal (MSK) Community Delivery Programme. With a £3.5 million funding boost, GIRFT teams will deploy their proven Further Faster model to work with integrated care board leaders to further reduce MSK community waiting times, including for those with osteoporosis, and improve data, metrics, and referral pathways to wider support services.