'Ageism and age discrimination in social care in the United Kingdom' review

The Department of Health commissioned the Centre for Policy on Ageing to undertake a literature review on ageing and social care. The review sought to uncover whether older people in care were discriminated against, compared to younger users of social care, in terms of:

• the services that were planned and delivered for them
• the way funding was allocated
• the way needs assessments were carried out.

The review found that the culture of seeing older people as 'vulnerable' and needing protection was problematic and burdensome. A degree of institutional and structural ageism existed, where low quality services for older people (65 years plus) were accepted because older people expected less and a lack of resources was seen as a tolerable 'norm'.