Social care is too often equated with care homes and dementia services for older people. Public debate not only misunderstands who uses social care, it often overlooks what social care makes possible. Most people will need care, provide care, or both, during their lives. Only when society understands the scope, value and reach of social care will meaningful reform become politically possible. Dr Louise LawsonLecturer in social policy, University of GlasgowPolly Toynbee asks: “Why do we endure this barely regulated, barely inspected patchwork of confusion” that constitutes Britain’s social care “system”?