Standardisers

You will fully appreciate the importance of standards as helping set crucial ‘quality benchmarks’ for our products and services. And, equally importantly, you’ll be aware of the honourable tradition that standards have in relation to good governance and ethical conduct in business – and, increasingly, in the wider world (including the public and third sectors) of products and services.

But the question arises as to whether standards, at a time of dramatic demographic change have taken adequate consideration of the needs of older people? There is the fear that they have not. And worse than this is the fear that widespread negative attitudes to older age may have led to shortcomings in the design and configuration of products and services.