1. Shortly before the end of the last parliamentary session we received from Ivan Lewis MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Department of Health, the Government's Response to our Eighteenth Report of Session 2006-07, The Human Rights of Older People in Healthcare (HL Paper 156-I, HC 378-I). We publish this Response as an Appendix to this Report.

2. As with several of our previous thematic inquiries, we intend to follow-up our Report by seeking a debate on older people in healthcare in Westminster Hall and by pursuing some of the specific issues we have raised with the Government. In particular, we will wish to press the Government to ensure that human rights are integral to policy-making by the Department of Health as well as to the planning and implementation of services in hospitals and care homes; human rights underpin the work of the proposed new health and social care inspectorate; front-line staff in healthcare receive appropriate education and training in human rights; and that there is no discrimination on the grounds of age in the provision of healthcare to older people.

3. We also intend to scrutinise the Government's response to the judgment of the House of Lords in the YL case, in which it was found that private sector care homes were not public authorities for the purposes of the Human Rights Act.