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Background: falls are one of the most frequent complications on rehabilitation wards for elderly patients.

Objective: to study the characteristics of early and late fallers.

Design: prospective observational study with blinded end‐point evaluation.

Setting: a non‐acute geriatric hospital.

Subjects: 1025 consecutive patients admitted for rehabilitation following treatment for an acute illness.

Main outcome measures: early/late fallers and time to first fall from admission.

Results: we identified 824 non‐fallers and 201 fallers. Seventy seven (38.3%) fell during the first week. The incidence decreased progressively in subsequent weeks. Early fallers were more likely to have a past history of falls (P=0.0009), an unsafe gait (P=0.001), confusion (P<0.0001) and be admitted from medical wards (P=0.03). Patients admitted from orthopaedic wards …