Poor practice must never be tolerated, says Ruth Marks, the older people's commissioner for Wales Care of some elderly hospital patients is "shamefully inadequate", according to a review for Wales' older people's commissioner.
It found some patients degraded and humiliated and the commissioner, Ruth Marks, is calling for "fundamental change".
Health Minister Edwina Hart said the findings will be considered as part of work to "improve patient care".
Recommendations include improving discharge times and patient privacy.
The review was carried out following a public consultation and a poll of 1,500 people which found that one in five either knew someone who had a negative experience of hospital care, or had one themselves.
The panel, chaired by Dame Deirdre Hine, a former chief medical officer for Wales, gathered evidence through hospital visits and written evidence.
The report highlights as unacceptable a "lack of timely response to continence needs" which it found widely reported.
Dame Deirdre Hine Review panel chair“Attitudes and practices that assault the dignity and self esteem of older people at a time when they are most anxious and vulnerable must be stopped”
It said the sharing of patients' personal information within earshot of others "should cease wherever possible".
The report said that "too many older people are still not being discharged in an effective and timely manner and this needs urgent attention".
The review panel also heard that older people have low expectations of what to expect in terms of dignity and respect while in hospital.
"Attitudes and practices that assault the dignity and self esteem of older people at a time when they are most anxious and vulnerable must be stopped," said Dame Deirdre.
The report, called Dignified Care? details recommendations, including the need to change the culture of caring for older people by empowering ward managers to run wards in a way that "enhances dignity and respect" as well as "prioritising continence care".
Some of the findings in this report make for uncomfortable reading - and in many ways, that's the point.
It draws attention to issues like avoidable incontinence, when people are denied the right to go to the toilet.
It says the effect is degrading and humiliating for patients - "an assault on their self respect".
The report highlights the contrast between the good, compassionate care many thousands of older patients receive every day in Wales, and basic failures which erode the dignity of older patients.
Some of the problems - such as delayed discharges from hospital - are long standing.
Others, like the sharing of
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