She said it was important that the rights of individuals to take their own decisions, when they were able to do so, was respected.
“This includes having as much choice as possible about personal routines such as when someone eats or sleeps, or spends time alone. The person’s needs should come before what is most convenient for the home,” she stressed.
The advice calls for improvements in the safeguarding of the elderly and vulnerable, with more than 39,000 investigations into alleged abuse in care homes each year.
It also says far more must be done to ensure that care home residents are eating properly, with too many cases of malnutrition ending up in hospital.
Investigations by the Care Quality Commission have repeatedly found cases in which care home residents were forced to rise at four and five am, to suit the needs of staff, only to be found by inspectors asleep in armchairs by six am.
In some care homes, staff admitted that residents had to wait three hours for breakfast, or even for a cup of tea, while elderly people told how they faced long waits when they needed to be taken to the toilet.