Labour's Health Failures - Hip Fractures

The first national clinical audit of patients who have fallen and fractured bones (their hip, wrist, arm, pelvis or spine) has revealed that inadequate service exists across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The full report can be found here.

- 31% of operations for hip fractures were delayed beyond the 48 hours target ... 11% were delayed beyond 96 hours (4 days)
- 11% of patients means 6000 people a year are experiencing this kind of delay for hip fractures, a delay associated with increased death from complications
- 78% of patients returning home from A&E after all fragility fractures were not referred for exercise training to reduce future falls

Hip fractures are associated with up to 14,000 deaths per year.

With women being four times as likely as men to develop osteoporosis, it's clear that the NHS is failing elderly women.

In fact, when you look at the Queen's Speech yesterday:

Paul Cann, spokesman for Help the Aged: "Gordon Brown's government appears to place the requirements of our pensioner population at the bottom of the priority list ... with the reality of an ageing population, it's a misguided decision ... Nothing was said about how the Government intends to tackle pensioner poverty, nor how to deal with the rising scourge of fuel poverty. Ministers have not made a commitment this year to introduce a Single Equality Bill to combat age discrimination. Older people have tolerated ageism for too long."