Preventing broken bones
Professor Nick Harvey from the University of Southampton is helping to change how osteoporosis is managed in the UK.
Every year, over half a million older people in the UK break a bone due to osteoporosis. This has an enormous impact on their daily lives, including their health, mobility, and independence.
Thanks to you, Professor Nick Harvey is one step closer to changing how osteoporosis is managed in this country.
As many people die of fracture-related causes as they do from lung cancer and diabetes.Professor Nick Harvey
Osteoporosis: more than just weakened bones
Half of women over the age of 50, and a fifth of men, are affected by osteoporosis - a health condition that weakens bones, making them fragile and more likely to break.
“When people think of a fracture, they probably picture a plaster cast, and they assume that the bone just gets better and you carry on,” says Nick, Professor of Rheumatology and Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Southampton, and Director of the University’s MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Centre. “But as many people die of fracture-related causes as they do from lung cancer and diabetes. For others, the condition leads to a loss of independence, broken connections with friends and family, and a sharp downturn in quality of life.”
“If you think of an older woman, who might be living by herself – if she breaks her wrist, how does she make a cup of tea? How does she lift the kettle, or cook for herself? Bone fracture often means that someone who is independent and living freely in the community, now needs care in a nursing home.”
This is where the broader, national impacts come in, with osteoporosis incurring substantial costs to health and social care – £5 billion per year in the UK simply for direct healthcare costs.
Screening for fracture risk
Clearly a new approach, aimed at preventing osteoporosis and broken bones in the first place, could have an enormous impact, both on a personal and national level.
To tackle this urgent health crisis, Nick and his colleagues have championed a national screening programme, which would allow fracture risk to be assessed automatically in older men and women in primary care.
In the Medical Research Council-funded SCOOP study, 12,500 older women were either screened for risk of hip fracture (using a fracture risk assessment tool called FRAX), or they received normal care. Over a period of five years, the tool led to a 28% reduction in hip fracture risk, and it was found to be cost saving, reducing the cost by £286 per patient.
“The thing that made the difference,” says Nick, “is that people identified as high risk within the screening group got the drugs they needed to prevent fracture. This highlights that the right therapies exist, it’s just that tens of thousands of people are falling through the cracks and not getting the treatment plan they need.”
“A few years ago, I wouldn’t have given much thought to osteoporosis.”
Stephen is 71 and lives in North Yorkshire. Because of osteoporosis, he was forced to give up work. With earlier assessment and treatment, Stephen might have been able to stay fit and active into his 70s.
Stephen's story
Changing Policy and Practice
Turning evidence into policy and changing perceptions
The next challenge was to work out a way of sharing these results with policymakers and other key stakeholders, who could change how osteoporosis is managed in the UK. That’s what led Nick to the Foundation, and our Changing Policy and Practice funding scheme.
Thanks to your support, Nick was able to work closely with the Royal Osteoporosis Society and the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Osteoporosis, which led to the publication of a key policy paper. Together, these groups identified critical gaps in fracture prevention, along with specific recommendations for improving the identification of people at high fracture risk.
Their analysis showed that a programme of targeted screening for women over 70 would prevent 8,000 hip fractures per year in the UK. Given that 1 in 4 people die within a year of suffering a hip fracture, it can be a matter of life and death.
Nick says there’s still a long way to go in changing people’s perception of osteoporosis. “I think people accept that if there’s something going wrong with your heart, for example, it might kill you. Whereas they don’t readily think, ‘Oh, a broken hip – that might kill.’”
As scientists, it’s critical that we turn our research into reality on the ground.Professor Nick Harvey
Building momentum for national change
The next step for Nick and his colleagues is to work with policymakers to implement this recommended approach in the UK.
“To do this nationally would be an absolute game changer, in ensuring that every person at high risk of fracture receives appropriate assessment and treatment,” says Nick. “Given that only 30% of people at high fracture risk get assessed and treated, we’ve clearly got a lot of work to do. But the Foundation-funded work has been a huge step in the right direction.”
“As scientists, it’s critical that we turn our research into reality on the ground. The Foundation’s Changing Policy and Practice scheme is totally unique in facilitating this focus and allowing us to get our message out at the highest levels – talking directly to peers and politicians.”
“We are enormously grateful to the Foundation and its donors for their incredible support, which gives us a real opportunity to alter UK policy, in a way that could prevent life-changing fractures in thousands of people across the country.”
Donate now and change lives
Your support has led to ground-breaking discoveries and life-changing advances, but there is still more to do. For every researcher we support, there are many more we can’t – not because they lack merit, but because we lack the funds to support them all. You can change that. Your donation today could support research like Nick's, and could fund the next life-changing discovery.
Donate now