Guest editorial

As a pragmatic philosopher and mental health nursing academic I passionately believe that health and social care research, which that is embedded within the real-life world of the service user, can assist us in addressing the big societal challenges. One such challenge is the challenge a rapidly ageing society poses. The UK population is rapidly ageing and by 2050, the number of people over 65 years old will have potentially doubled to 20 million, of that figure 8 million will be aged 80 or over. There is no doubt an ageing population will have a significant impact upon future health and social care delivery. Health and social care services are already responding to these predicted changes by focusing on providing care, which is more efficient and more effective. In addition, work-force planning initiatives are focusing on producing health and social care practitioners who will be technologically smart and adaptive to new ways of working (Smith 2015).