I n 1997, the last time there was a Labour landslide, Tony Blair famously said that ‘a new dawn has broken.' This time around the optimism has a different feel. Social care is in a difficult place, for the reasons we all know so well – lack of cash, workers, and rising demand, and a lack of strategic creativity. Recovering lost ground, never mind creating a new dawn for social care, will be hard. Rumours of another Royal Commission on social care will not have raised anyone's hopes of quick resolutions.

Social care needs new vision but when it comes to making things better now we shouldn't despair; many of the answers to these challenges exist already – proven models of care which, if consistently implemented across the country, could transform outcomes for people.