The push by Andy Burnham to reform how we pay for social care for elderly people moves on almost every day. The problem there is that this could work very well for the next generation of retirees, but would not help anyone already facing the need for social care. A few – notably Denmark, which has a very good system – pay for the whole lot out of general taxation. The Netherlands has two public insurance programmes; one that pays for nursing homes, the other for nursing and personal care at home. These include taking the NHS model and using some new tax to pay for care on NHS lines for older people who need it.