Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his policies of international best practice in the provision of osteoporosis diagnosis services; and whether he is applying lessons learned from those practices to NHS policy.

In the last three years, two new drugs have been recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for the treatment of osteoporosis in post-menopausal women, namely abaloparatide and romosozumab. These medications help to strengthen the bones and prevent bone loss, thereby reducing the risk of fractures. The National Health Service is legally required to make funding available for treatments recommended by NICE.

We have invested in 13 new bone density, or DEXA, scanners, which are expected to provide up to 29,000 extra scans per year to ensure people with bone conditions get diagnosed earlier.

The National Fracture Liaison Service database is a clinically led national audit of secondary fracture prevention in England and Wales and is commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership and delivered by the Royal College of Physicians. It collects and publishes data on individual Fracture Liaison Services and uses internationally recognised standards as the key performance indicators that these services are measured against. The data is publicly available.