The government has bowed to pressure from the likes of Help the Aged and promised to ban age discrimination in the provision of goods and services, in a forthcoming Equality Bill.

This could have significant implications for social care and mental health, where it has long been assumed that services for older people receive less funding and have lower aspirations for people - in terms of independence and quality of life - than those for younger adults.

And it's not just the charities claiming this. In in a press conference recently, John Dixon, the president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, admitted that social care had a long history of ageism.

Do people think this remains a big problem?

 Absolutely and the impact of the new legislation will be interesting. Less resources are allocated per individual in older persons services and less time per individual is allocated. Just the difference between DLA (for under 65s) v AA (for over 65s) shows the discrepancy. The eligibility criteria for ILF having a cut-off of 65.. just some random examples off the top of my head. 

As long as different criteria are applied to people when they reach 65, there is a difference in service provision. 

The thing is, this new law could be very expensive... the reasons we have been given for these differences is that if the more generous criteria that apply to under 65s were applied to over 65s, there just wouldn't be enough money to go round - I try not to be too cynical but I can't help wondering if the new legislation will lead to more strict criteria being applied to those under 65 rather than more generous criteria being applied to those over 65. ...