Millions of pensioners have been left at risk of inferior hospital treatment, more expensive insurance and a narrower choice of holidays after ministers shelved a ban on age discrimination.

2:10PM GMT 24 Feb 2012

Measures to outlaw ageism in the provision of goods and services were due to become law from April this year, but the Home Office has delayed the implementation of any ban until at least October.

Campaigners said they feared the set-back signalled that the Coalition was not committed to tackling age discrimination and that the proposed law could be abandoned altogether.

A series of damning reports from official watchdogs in the last year have uncovered examples of elderly people suffering abuse and neglect at the hands of their nurses and carers.

‘Dignity’ inspections in hundreds of care homes within weeks

A team of inspectors is to be sent into hundreds of care homes within to check whether elderly people are being treated with dignity.

11:53AM GMT 22 Feb 2012

The care regulator the Care Quality Commission, said inspectors would begin carrying out unannounced spot checks on residential homes across England from next month checking whether basic standards are being maintained.

It comes as the Government threw its weight behind a new code of conduct for care workers and nurses which demands that elderly patients are treated with dignity and respect and not simply treated as “objects”.

Politicians on both sides of the Commons, The Royal College of Nursing, the TUC, and charities including AGE UK are among supporters of the new “Dignity Code” drawn up by the National Pensioners’ Convention.