It may sound a bit self-indulgent, to have one's thoughts broadcasted in a national publication, but in my role as a director of adult social care and chair of West Midlands ADASS, I imagine that many local authority colleagues find themselves thinking outside the box to promote good outcomes.

Take this thought: in February we considered the possibility of a ‘system agnostic' approach to health and social care services. This idea has spurred some debate and appears to have generally been accepted as a good thing – the method of achieving said idea, however, is clearly incredibly difficult.