Is Labour using bogus figures to claim it has hit bone clinic targets?

Published: 22:46, 15 August 2026 | Updated: 22:51, 15 August 2026 A leading health charity backed by the Queen has accused the Government of making 'deeply misleading' claims that it has improved services for patients suffering from deadly bone disease osteoporosis. The Royal Osteoporosis Society (ROS), whose president is Queen Camilla, has written to the statistics watchdog to complain that Labour is using bogus figures to make it appear that specialist clinics which pick up the disease early had been successfully rolled out across the country. In fact, only half of NHS trusts have the services, despite a key pre-election pledge for them to be universal by 2030. The Mail on Sunday and the ROS have campaigned since 2024 for the Government to make good on its promises to deliver Fracture Liaison Services (FLS), which the ROS says could save thousands of lives and prevent further disability from life-changing fractures. Before the 2024 General Election, then-shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said it would be one of his 'first acts' in government to deliver FLS everywhere. But amid a simmering row which threatens to embarrass new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, the charity has written to the UK Statistics Authority over remarks made by health ministers Gillian Merron and Karin Smyth. Baroness Merron told the House of Lords last month that 23 out of 25 Integrated Care Boards in England now have FLS, while Mrs Smyth told MPs that '92 per cent of the country is now covered'. But the ROS says this is highly misleading because there has been no meaningful increase in services for patients – and the figures are based instead on the redrawing of NHS administrative boundaries. A leading health charity backed by the Queen has accused Andy Burnham's Government of making 'deeply misleading' claims that it has improved services for patients suffering from deadly bone disease osteoporosis Queen Camilla during a visit to the RHS Sandringham Flower Show on July 22 Health Secretary Yvette Cooper (centre) during a visit to a community-based mental health centre in Sheffield The charity is calling on Health Secretary Yvette Cooper to 'correct the record'.  Ruth Wakeman, a director at the ROS, said: 'Redrawing the lines on an NHS map does not create new services or give patients meaningful new access to care. 'Patients have been given a deeply misleading picture of progress.' Lord Black, who co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Osteoporosis, has written to MPs and peers protesting about the Government's 'misleading figures'. Osteoporosis is a serious disease affecting 3.5 million people in the UK, mainly women. Left undiagnosed, people are vulnerable to life-changing fractures. The clinics, embedded in NHS trusts, would investigate people for the disease after they suffer their first fracture, which the ROS says would prevent 74,000 broken bones over five years.  The clinics are still only available in around half of all NHS trusts in England. Consultant Dr Madhavi Vindlacheruvu, of Cambridge University Hospitals and chairman of the East of England Fracture Liaison Service Network, said: 'Redrawing NHS boundaries does not create a single new Fracture Liaison Service.' The Health Department said: 'This Government remains committed to rolling out Fracture Liaison Services by 2030… We're also investing in 20 new state-of-the-art DEXA [bone density] scanners.'