More than one in ten people over the age of 65 and up to half the population aged over 85 live with frailty. NHS England describes a person living with frailty, which has a strong link with ageing, as being at high risk of falls, immobility, delirium, incontinence, side effects of medication, admission to hospital or the need for long-term care.
The National Audit Office (NAO) have published a study in December 2025 examining how effectively government is tackling the challenges of growing numbers of people with frailty. In 2019, researchers estimated that frailty cost the UK healthcare system around £5.8 billion per year. NAO analysis from April ’17 to March ’25 shows that in total c.1m people had been diagnosed as living with moderate frailty, and a further 450,000 as living with severe frailty.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has a longstanding interest in health-related policy delivery, finding in November 2025 that billions had been spent to tackle NHS waiting lists while still missing post-COVID service recovery targets. Its May 2025 report on the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24 warned that abolishing NHS England (NHSE) with no clear plan for proposed cuts had left an uncertain future for patients and staff.
Proceeding from the NAO’s December 2025 report, the PAC will hear from senior officials at the DHSC and NHSE with likely topics including how effectively government, primary care and community services are working to detect people at risk of frailty and delivering support for them.
If you have evidence on these issues, please submit here by 23:59 on Thursday 15 January 2026.
Please look at the requirements for written evidence submissions and note that the Committee cannot accept material as evidence that is published elsewhere. The Committee decides what information to publish and how. You can request anonymity or confidentiality when you send evidence, but it is for the Committee to say whether it will agree.It may treat submissions confidentially, even where you have not requested this.
Please note that the Committee’s inquiry cannot assist with individual cases. If you need help with an individual problem you are having, you may wish to read the information on Parliament’s website about who you can contact with different issues.