GP appointment slots for people aged over 75s in the Ribble Valley will be extended thanks to extra funding.

Patients will be able to see their GPs for 15 minutes, instead of 10 minutes, and appointments with practice nurses and health care assistants will increase from 20 to 30 minutes.

People who use The Castle Medical Group and Pendleside Medical Practice in Clitheroe, Slaidburn Medical Practice in Slaidburn and the Sabden and Whalley Medical Centre in Whalley will benefit.

The move has been made possible after the East Lancashire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) decided to spend £49,000 of unallocated funding from 2014/15.

In a Primary Care Committee report, Hayley Sims, locality commissioning manager at the East Lancashire CCG, said: "Extended appointment times will support the existing over 75s service and would allow a more thorough assessment of patients’ needs.

"Importantly, it will allow more time for health professionals to offer health promotion; more time for effective signposting to other agencies and more time to develop effective working relationships with other community services.

"Practices will need to demonstrate how the delivery of this objective will improve the experience of patients over 75 years whilst maintaining access to other patients."

As of August 2015, there was a registered population of 37,666 using the four practices. The extended appointments will be funded until Thursday, March 31.

Waddington and West Bradford councillor Bridget Hilton, a former nurse and midwife at Birch Hill Hospital in Rochdale, said: " There is a need for more services in the ageing population in the Ribble Valley.

"It isn't just a problem in our area, but it is a national and international problem.

"The people who rely on the NHS are the very young and the very old and I think it is a sound idea.

"Any way of helping and improving the NHS which the public will benefit from is something I will proudly support."