A new way of treating people with broken bones has been rolled out across Wales.
Health and social care cabinet secretary Jeremy Miles announced the All-Wales Fracture Liaison Service, which will ensure patients aged 50 and over with a broken bone after a fall have their bone health and falls risk checked and managed to lower their risk of any further fractures in the future.
The aim of the service is to safeguard people from recurring injuries and is a clinical and cost-effective early intervention method to keep people out of hospitals.
More than £1m in funding from the Six Goals Programme for Urgent and Emergency Care and from the Welsh Value in Health Centre has helped develop the service in areas where there was no provision, and to support expansion and improvement of existing services.
The funding has seen an additional 13 clinical nurse specialists and 11 administration staff recruited to FLS across Wales.
Jeremy Miles said: "Statistics suggest that if somebody has a fragility fracture there's a one-in-three chance they will sustain a further fracture within 12 months. But risk can be reduced by up to 40 per cent if appropriate services are in place.
“I am delighted to say we have achieved our aim of rolling out FLS across Wales. This will prevent costly hospital admissions, delivering significant savings for the NHS and support people to continue their lives more confidently at home after a fall.”
Dr Inder Singh, the national clinical lead for falls and frailty, who leads the All-Wales FLS Quality Assurance and Development Group, said: "In the next phase of this work, we must focus on ensuring these services meet all expected standards for the intended benefits to be fully realised.”
Chief executive of the Royal Osteoporosis Society Craig Jones said: “People in Wales can be proud that their Government was the first to mandate universal Fracture Liaison Services to end the revolving door of fracture patients in hospitals."
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