Age Discrimination in Mental Health Services

The College made tackling age discrimination a major priority in year one of the Fair Deal campaign.

This has involved campaigining in Parliament to ensure that the Government outlaws age discrimination in health serices in the Equality Bill and developing policy to support the campaign messages.

The College was pleased to see that the Equality Bill contained provisions to outlaw age discrimination in the provision of goods and services. However, we were concerned about Government statements at the time that the implementation of the new law would be delayed for health and social care. We have called on the Government to introduce the measures without delay.

A key part of this campaign involved the development of a College position statement to give an overview of the current extent of discrimination against older people in mental health services, and draw on the areas of best practice to demonstrate how local services can be transfomed so that they are based on need, not age.

The position statement Age Discrimination in mental health services: making equality a reality, and a supporting evidence document The need to tackle age discrimination in mental health were launched by Baroness Neuberger on October 13th 2009 at an event in the House of Commons.

The College was pleased when on October 22nd, the Health Secretary, Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP, announced that age discrimination in NHS and social care will be outlawed from 2012 and the implementation will not be delayed.