AEGIS, Aid to the Elderly in Government Institutions

AEGIS (Aid to the Elderly in Government Institutions) was a pressure group set up by Barbara Robb (d 1975) to campaign about the treatment of elderly people in the psychiatric and geriatric wards of British hospitals, following her personal involvement in the case of Amy Gibbs, a patient at Friern Barnet Hospital. AEGIS was founded in November 1965, and the publication of Sans Everything: a case to answer (Nelson, London, 1967) by Robb led to government debates and the setting up of Committees of Inquiry into the conditions at several hospitals in Great Britain. The first reading of the NHS Reorganisation Bill took place in 1972, and a Health Ombudsman was appointed in 1973. Robb died in 1975.