That is the message from the Commission on improving dignity in care for older people, an independent body set up by the NHS Confederation, Age UK and the Local Government Association (LGA).

The Commission recently publishes a draft report for consultation that recommends "fundamental changes to culture, leadership, management, staff development, clinical practice and service delivery".

The report aims to identify ways of ending the persistent failings across the health and social care system after years of reports exposing severe shortcomings.

Co-chairing the Commission is NHS Confederation Chair Sir Keith Pearson JP DL, Age UK Chair Dianne Jeffrey CBE DL, and Chair of the LGA's Community Wellbeing Board Councillor David Rogers OBE. There are nine additional commissioners including representatives of patients and residents, experts from the worlds of nursing, medicine, and management of health and social care services.

The Commission has spent eight months reviewing and gathering  evidence, taking written submissions from some 40 organisations, holding three days of public hearings, and getting advice from academic, medical and nursing reference groups.

Its report, Delivering Dignity, published recently for a one-month consultation, stresses that there are many hospitals and care homes providing high quality, dignified care to older people.  

In a joint foreword the three co chairs say: "Like many others, we've been deeply saddened by  the reports highlighting the undignified care of older people in our hospitals and care homes. In too many cases, people have been let down when they were vulnerable and most needed help. We want this report to be a call to arms to the whole health and social care system. We need to work together to earn back public confidence. We know there are some hospitals and care homes providing great care, and we need to learn from them to get dignified care right for every person every time.

"Solving the problems will require the consistent application of good practice and the rooting out of poor care. But we also need to trigger a major cultural shift in the way everyone in care thinks about dignity to ensure it is person-centred and not task-focused.

“This will require empowered leadership on the ward and in the care home, as well as in the boardroom. It will mean changing  the way we recruit and develop staff so they have the right values as well as skills.

"We have to do much more to listen and respond to patients and residents. The care system must  bar the way to prejudice, and keep our services free from language that belittles older people  and causes them to be seen as a burden. Hospitals and care homes should be beacons to the rest of the community, demonstrating how we are all the richer when older people are respected, valued and celebrated.

"Achieving all this will mean changing the way we design, pay for and monitor services that provide dignified care as the numbers of  older people in care continues to grow."

The three organisations are working on a joint action plan to persuade all those involved in the provision, commissioning and monitoring of care to take up the Commission's final proposals.

They aim to seek support from national and local health and social care leaders to make dignity an equal priority alongside safe and effective care; spread best practice across hospitals and care homes; help older people and their families understand what they have a right to expect; and help frontline staff to recognise and take responsibility for high standards.

Following the publication of the report, the chairs of the Commission will be writing to every hospital trust board and all the major care home providers to highlight the recommendations and invite them to respond to consultation.

Recommendations for hospitals include:

Recommendations for care homes include:

Recommendations affecting hospitals, care homes and the whole care system include:

Read the full report