The NHS and social services departments have been ordered to identify and root out "age discrimination" in the way they treat older people under a initiative aimed at driving up standards of care across the country.

Pensioners are to be guaranteed equality of access to NHS treatment and social care services under the government's long-awaited national service framework (NSF) for older people.

The framework outlines national target standards on hospital and social care, post-hospital care, stroke services, accident and rehabilitation services, mental health, and healthy living.

It effectively bans the refusal of treatment to older people on the grounds of age alone, including the widespread use by doctors of "do not resuscitate" notes when treating terminally-ill patients.

The move was welcomed by elderly rights charities, which said it amounted to the first admission by a government that the NHS discriminates against older patients.

Launching the framework, health minister John Hutton said that in future NHS services would be provided "on the basis of clinical need alone, regardless of age". The document admits that "there have been reports of poor, unresponsive, insensitive and, in the worst cases, discriminatory services" in the NHS and suggests this is a result of "the survival of old systems and practices".

It adds: "This has been shown in specific problems such as the lack of rehabilitation, inadequate dementia services and inconsistencies in stroke care." Mr Hutton promised that over the next three years, the NHS would perform an extra 70,000 cataract operations, 16,000 more hip and knee replacements and 3,000 more heart operations.

There will be an "older patient champion" on patient forums attached to NHS trusts, while each trust board and social services committee will have a designated representative with responsibility for the rights of elderly people.

A sum of £105m - from the £835m fund announced for the NHS in the Budget - has been earmarked for equipment to aid the elderly and infirm, such as chair lifts and grab rails.

The NHS plan, published in July 2000, committed £1.4bn extra for spending on healthcare for older people.

The plan also set out ambitious plans to recruit 140 extra specialists in old age medicine, 85 old age psychiatrists, and thousands of nurses and physiotherapists involved in the care of older people.

Professor Ian Philp, the government's "tsar" for the elderly, said: "This will make age discrimination a thing of the past. Older people will be treated as individuals, with respect and dignity."

Gordon Lishman, director general of Age Concern England, said: "The document must become the cornerstone for promoting and improving the health of older people, but must also ensure that older people are treated as individuals, not simply as a group."

Shadow health secretary Dr Liam Fox called the framework "an election stunt".