Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have been diagnosed with osteoporosis in the UK in each of the last three years; and if he will breakdown those figures by (a) age and (b) gender.

NHS Digital have provided a count of hospital admissions in England in each of the last three years where osteoporosis was the main diagnosis, split by patient age and gender.

The information is not collected in the format requested. However, the table shows a count of finished admission episodes (FAEs) with a primary diagnosis of osteoporosis, broken down by age and gender for the years 2018/19 - 2020/21.

Please note that this is not a count of people as the same person can be admitted to hospital on more than one occasion. Initial diagnosis of the condition may have taken place in a previous financial year to the one in which the hospital admissions shown here have taken place. Additionally, there may be people diagnosed with the condition who do not require a hospital admission for it and would therefore not be recorded in this data, as osteoporosis develops slowly over a number of years and not all those who have it will require a hospital admission.

NHS Digital are unable to provide a complete count of the number of people who have been newly diagnosed with osteoporosis by age and gender as some could be diagnosed in other settings, such as general practice.