(Bloomberg) -- The French government unveiled a sweeping plan to step up controls and transparency at nursing homes after a scandal involving the alleged mistreatment of elderly people at Orpea SA rocked the country this year.

All of France’s 7,500 nursing homes will be inspected in the coming two years, starting with those where incidents of mistreatment have been signaled, the French Health Ministry said in emailed documents on Tuesday. The government is setting up a platform where families and health-care workers can flag cases of abuse, and will bolster an existing hot-line dedicated to fighting the mistreatment of the elderly, the documents show.

The measures, part of a bigger plan for the country’s aging population adopted by President Emmanuel Macron’s government since 2017, may be not enough to restore confidence in a sector that’s been under fire since the January publication of a book entitled “The Gravediggers,” which alleged that Orpea consistently put profits ahead of patient welfare, leading to the widespread mistreatment of the elderly in its care. 

Orpea HQ, Nursing Homes Searched in ‘Gravediggers’ Scandal 

The book, which slams Orpea’s management for rationing items like food and adult diapers, has put the spotlight on Europe’s challenge of relying on privately-run, for-profit nursing homes for their aging populations in spite of the region’s tax-funded health-care systems. 

The French government, which had already announced a total of 2.6 billion euros ($2.8 billion) in investments to modernize nursing homes and 2.8 billion euros to bolster the attractiveness of retirement-home jobs, has come under pressure for not putting an adequate system of checks and balances in place. The stakes are high for Macron, who faces re-election next month.

The government plans to further bolster regional agencies responsible for nursing-home oversight. IGAS and IGF, state bodies responsible for investigations on social affairs and finances respectively, and France’s Court of Accounts also will have the power to conduct inspections, including surprise ones.

The government will also force retirement homes to adopt stricter accounting and budget rules to bolster transparency on their use of public and private funds, and will set up a rating system for the various establishments, according to the ministry.

Results from an investigation into Orpea by IGAS are due out next week, the ministry said.

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