Tony Robinson said his mother's situation left him feeling isolated

"In 100 years' time, people will look back at the way we look after the infirm, the elderly today with the same sense of disbelief that we look back on child labour", he told the BBC.

A documentary, to be shown on Channel 4, details the care of his 89-year-old mother Phyllis, who suffered from dementia for some years before her death.

Mr Robinson - best-known for playing the part of Baldrick in the Blackadder series - said he felt his mother had been treated as a "managerial problem which needed to be coped with".

"The home that she went into was pretty good. I wasn't pointing the finger at a particular home, much more at what our attitudes are like," he said.

"I mean, it strikes me as quite extraordinary that if you foster a child you can get up to �300 a week.

When you have responsibility for someone in that situation you feel that it's just your own personal, private tragedy Tony Robinson System 'neglects elderly'

"If you are a carer, looking after someone who's elderly and infirm - sacrificing your life and your career for them - you get �45 a week.

"Now that to me is a vivid demonstration of where our priorities are crazily wrong."

He also said training for carers needed to be improved, as did pay to deal with the high turnover of staff.

"In elderly people's homes, the training is lousy - it's better than it was but it's still kind of tick-box training that makes sure that they have enough calories and don't get burned to death," he said.

"But as far as thinking of the elderly in terms of human happiness, there is very little of that going on."

I was angry with myself too, because I thought I could have done better Tony Robinson

He said he had made the film after becoming "angrier and angrier" over the years.

"Partly because of the way our society marginalises our older people, particularly those who are infirm," he added, "And partly because we didn't talk about it.

"You know how, in our society, when you have responsibility for someone in that situation you feel that it's just your own personal, private tragedy.

"You are locked away with it and there's nothing you can do about it. And that just so frustrated me.

"I was angry with myself too, because I thought I could have done better."

He said there were tens of thousands of people who felt like this.

"And yet the circumstances we place our elderly in are quite awful."