He told a committee of MPs and peers examining the government's health reforms that the focus had been on preventing more "awful things happening" in NHS hospitals after the Stafford Hospital scandal.
But the public is also concerned about abuse, neglect and errors by staff in care homes and nurses visiting the elderly in their own homes, he said.
Norman Lamb, the Care Minister, told The Daily Telegraph that the principle of "absolute openness" about shortcomings and mistakes should apply "everywhere".
"The idea that something should happen in a care home, a fall, wrong medication, whatever it might be, and that relatives are not told or that the resident isn't told, is utterly wrong," he said.
"We have got to be very clear that that culture of openness should apply everywhere.
"We just have to look at whether we can implement it, and if we can implement it what the scope of it should be."
The ministers also suggested that tighter budgets for both the NHS and elderly care services run by councils were forcing health executives and local authorities to work more closely together.
Mr Hunt told the committee that "the pressure on budgets" was causing councils and the NHS "to talk to each other seriously in a way they simply haven't had to in the past".
His comments came as campaigners warned that two-thirds of English councils had cut their funding for older people's home care.
Government figures suggested that nearly 20,000 fewer pensioners were receiving local authority-funded help with daily tasks such as washing and dressing last year than the year before.
Age UK, the charity which uncovered the details, said the burden would be falling on the husbands and wives of those frail elderly and disabled adults who needed help with daily living.
A separate study from Carers UK found one in three adults feared the financial cost of looking after a loved one full time.
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