GPs in England too ‘overloaded’ to help older people at risk of falling, say MPs

NHS bosses giving evidence to public accounts committee admit current position is unacceptable

GPs in England are so “overloaded” that they cannot help older people who are at risk of falling in what NHS bosses accept is an unacceptable failure of care, the House of Commons’ public accounts committee has said.

Pressure on GPs’ time has intensified as a result of the government’s decision to give patients online access to their services, according to a report by the influential cross-party group of MPs.

The committee found that GPs are doing too little to tackle falls even though they are the most common cause of death from injury among over-65s, cause tens of thousands of hip fractures, add to hospitals’ workloads and cost the UK an estimated £4.4bn a year.

Family doctors in England are obliged under the terms of their contract to identify, assess and support people over 65 with moderate or severe frailty. However, “many GPs are not currently able to deliver on these requirements”. During 2024/25 just 17% of those patients were assessed.

Only 18% of the 226,000 people who were diagnosed with severe frailty that year were assessed for their risk of falling and only 16% underwent a review of the medication they were taking.

The situation has arisen because “NHS England has overloaded GPs, who have limited capacity, with new and expanding priorities”, the committee said.

“NHS [England] has prioritised improving patients’ access and digital access to general practice. It recognises that pushing to improve one aspect of care inevitably causes consequences to appear elsewhere, in this case support for people with frailty”, the committee added.