In October 2026 the Health Equity Committee of the European Society of Medicine responded to the World Health Organization’s public consultation on its first Global Standards for Long-Term Care. The Committee welcomes the draft and supports its rights-based approach to equity, its standards on financial protection and its phased approach to implementation. Its comments concern the health-care dimension of long-term care and share a single aim: to carry commitments that the draft already makes into its standards, quality statements and indicative measures, so that countries can act on them and monitor progress. The response makes five recommendations, on pain, preventive care, specialist advice at a distance, care decisions that follow the person’s goals and emergency preparedness, with a further comment on hearing from those least often heard. Each comes with a version suited to settings with limited resources.