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The Coalition for Quality in Care has said it is "outraged" by Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith's calling for the scrapping of the care standards regulations.

Kina Avebury, chairperson of the group, which represents older people and their care providers and has around 60 members including the Centre for Policy on Ageing, Age Concern England and Action on Elder Abuse, said the suggestion that the regulations be scrapped has the potential to "pull down the whole edifice" of care standards and the work that has gone into them.

Duncan Smith tabled four early day motions calling for the annulment of the National Care Standards Commission registration regulations, the fees and frequency of inspections regulations, the care home regulations and the private and voluntary health care regulations. The tabling of such an early day motion is a device to draw attention to an issue and to elicit support.

Avebury said that good providers had no problem in raising standards and were likely to "feel sick" if there was a relaxation in the requirements.

A spokesperson for Liam Fox, shadow secretary for health and one of the signatories of the motion, said the move was to draw attention to the way the government had "chronically mismanaged" the care home sector. He added that the standards were "vague and overbearing" and caused uncertainty in the sector.

The issue is to be debated within the next fortnight.