Summary
The FEMuR III economic evaluation presents costs and consequences of the intervention compared with usual care at 52-week follow-up. There was no evidence of clinical effectiveness in terms of improvement of quality of life, and the total health service costs were higher in the intervention group.

Purpose
To explore the costs and consequences of the new FEMuR III intervention compared to usual care after hip fractures.

Methods
This cost-consequence analysis accompanies the FEMuR III randomised controlled trial using a micro-costing approach. The main outcome measures in this economic evaluation were healthcare service use, costs, and quality of life over 12 months, from both National Health Service and wider societal perspectives. Quality of life was measured using the EuroQoL-5D-3L.

Results
The mean cost of delivering the intervention was £444 per participant. For participants with complete EQ-5D data (n = 142), both groups showed improvement in EQ-5D index score, moving scores closer to UK norms. Participants in the intervention group gained 0.02 (95% CI: − 0.036, 0.076) more quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) than the usual care group. However, this was not statistically significant (p value = 0.312). For imputed cases, participants in the intervention group gained less QALYs than the usual care by 0.01 (95% CI: − 0.056, 0.030). For participants with complete cost data (n = 115), at 52-week follow-up, mean health service use costs were higher in the intervention group from both perspectives.

Conclusions
The mean health service use costs were higher in the intervention group due to longer inpatient stays. There was no significant difference in QALYs between both groups. The trial was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and this goes some way to explaining the large proportion of missing data (40%).