An alliance of politicians, charities and regulators has stated that a code of conduct should be signed up by NHS nurses and care workers that will ensure respectable and dignified treatment to the elderly.

It has been stated that pensioners are being let down by not being spoken properly to, their privacy is not given to them and also good medical treatment is being denied to them.

A letter about this was signed by care minister Paul Burstow and his Labour shadow Liz Kendall, as well as charities, trade unions and academics. Through this letter they all have urged that a set of common standards need to be followed by hospitals, care homes and other institutions in order to prevent cases of abuse and neglect.

There can be some guidelines later on that could be drawn up by the National Pensioners' Convention representing elderly groups being included in the contracts of care workers.

The letter said, "For too long, too many of those people have been ignored, denied the basic right to speak for themselves or make up their own mind. In this era of human rights, too many older people have seen their basic human dignity undermined in situations where they are treated as objects rather than people."