Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what actions they have taken in response to the Medical Research Council's UK primary care-based ‘Screening for Osteoporosis in Older People’ trial.

The Government has not taken any specific action in response to the Medical Research Council's primary care-based trial, Screening for Osteoporosis in Older People. However, there are actions that the Government is taking more generally, to support people with osteoporosis and increase early diagnosis.

The Government is working to set up 160 community diagnostic centres (CDCs) across the country by March 2024. Some of these CDCs will offer bone density scans which can be used to diagnose or assess patients’ risk of osteoporosis. Our ambition is that 95% of patients needing a diagnostic check will receive it within six weeks, by March 2025.

On 24 January 2023, we announced our plan to publish the Major Conditions Strategy. The strategy will focus on six major groups of conditions, including musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders such as osteoporosis. We have since published our initial report Major conditions strategy: case for change and our strategic framework, which is available on the GOV.UK website, in an online only format. For MSK conditions such as osteoporosis, it sets out our aims to improve services where medical treatment is necessary. Together with NHS England, we will explore supporting the further provision of fracture liaison services. This could include identifying people at risk of further osteoporotic fragility fractures and implementing strategies to reduce the risk of future fractures, including from falls, and mortality.

Valuable research work is also being funded by the Department, through the National Institute of Health and Care Research, which has awarded £173 million to research into MSK conditions in the last five years.

The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) last reviewed the evidence to screen for osteoporosis in postmenopausal women in 2019, recommending that a population screening programme should not be introduced. The review identified that there were key areas of uncertainty around the test and treatment and that further research was needed. The research showed that screening all women for osteoporosis does not reduce the number of fractures compared to current care.

The UK NSC can be alerted to any new published peer-reviewed evidence which may suggest the case for a new screening programme via its annual call, which will open in July 2024.