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Gordon Lishman, Director General of Age Concern, said:

NHS Constitution

“The planned NHS Constitution should give patients a much better idea of the kind of care they have a right to expect. The main users of NHS services are older people and the constitution must help ensure that their voices are heard.  Older people’s needs are at present too often ignored – for example when they are not given the help they need when eating and suffer from malnutrition in hospital¹.”

Equality

“We strongly agree with Gordon Brown that ‘in 21st century Britain prejudice is no longer acceptable’.  A public duty to promote equality will help but a legal requirement not to discriminate against older people when providing goods and services is also clearly needed.  Age discrimination is the most common form of prejudice in Britain.  Good and services providers, including the public sector, will not act to help stamp out age discrimination without legal pressure.”

Workplace rights

“Giving every worker the chance to take time off for training sound very positive but there has to be a change in employer attitudes towards older workers if this is to become a reality. Older workers are increasingly important yet are often denied opportunities to further their skills or retrain as schemes and budgets are often focused on their younger counterparts.”

Extending flexible working

“Flexible working should also be extended to older people to help ease the transition into retirement. Our research shows that a third (31%) of older workers say they plan to retire flexibly, yet in reality only 7% of recently retired people say they were able to do so.”

Welfare reform

“Getting those who want to work back into the workplace is crucial but the Government must ensure that people are given the practical support that they need.² Our research shows that the Government’s provision of ‘back to work’ training programmes still do not fully meet the needs of older people."

 

-Ends-

Notes to editors

1. Not only do a significant amount of people arrive in hospital and care settings already malnourished, six out of ten older people are at risk of becoming malnourished, or their situation getting worse in hospital.  Malnutrition is still rife in the community, with up to 14% of people aged 65 and over in the UK being malnourished – a problem which is rarely tackled.
2. Around 900,000 people over 50 are not in work and want to find jobs. If they were all in work it would add around £30 billion to the economy.
   

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