Doncaster LPC has secured £50,000 in funding to identify and counsel patients at risk of falls over winter.

Pharmacists will target elderly patients on multiple medications and those on high-risk medicines as part of the service, which officially launched yesterday (January 15).

More than 40 pharmacies in the area have already started providing the service, which is paid at £10 per intervention, and at least 20 more contractors are expected to join them over the coming weeks.

Hip fractures cost the NHS £28,000 each and there were an estimated 15,000 people in Doncaster at risk of falls, said LPC secretary Nick Hunter	More on elderly care Update: Dementia part 1 Update: Dementia part 2 Pharmacy Staff Module 215 - Care for the elderly
	Pharmacists will offer advice themselves in straightforward cases and refer to other healthcare professionals such as GPs, opticians and social services when appropriate.

"The idea is to get the pharmacy team engaged so they can help identify the patients and pharmacists can do the main interaction," said Doncaster LPC secretary Nick Hunter.

Advice could be "dead simple stuff", such as suggesting patients on antihypertensives hold on to something when they stand up, he explained. Pharmacists would also hand out questionnaires to find out if patients appreciated the service, he said.

Funding came from the local CCG's winter pressures budget and will last until March, but Mr Hunter said he hoped to secure permanent commissioning. Doncaster LPC is working to capture data for an evaluation, which will be used to make a business case for this.

"I'm pretty sure there would be a lot of interest in [the service] if we could just prove that we had stopped a hip fracture," Mr Hunter told C+D.

Hip fractures cost the NHS £28,000 each and there were an estimated 15,000 people in Doncaster at risk of falls, Mr Hunter stressed. "It goes largely unrecognised, because falls aren't necessarily a speciality in their own right," he said.