Scots have never enjoyed overall better health than they do now.
Older Scots are no different. We are living longer, healthier lives, looking after ourselves and each other and staying active in our communities.
The Scottish Government supports this in a number of ways like free personal care, free bus travel and help with council tax and energy bills.
In future years Scotland's older people will form a greater proportion of the population than ever before. For the majority of us this will not make a huge difference to the lives we lead.
But many of us will need some help. It may be with our health, looking after ourselves at home or staying in touch with others in the community.
Older people might need services provided by the NHS, local authorities, voluntary and charitable organisations or the private sector.
This kind of help is what we deliver through the care system. It might be provided in a hospital, a care home, someone's own home or in the community. It could be help with medical needs, with household tasks or with getting out and about.
The important thing is that Scotland needs to make sure we can provide services that work for older people and that the country can afford.
The system we have for caring for our older people is right at the heart of these services. We all need to recognise that the way the population is changing means we cannot simply stand still.
We expect there to be 25 per cent more older Scots who will need some form of care in just the next six years.
We have a set-up that was simply not designed to cope with the demands that it will soon face. We need to be creative and ambitious in planning the changes we know we have to make now for the future good of us all.
And we can do it. We have the chance to work together as a country to design and build a care system that will make sure all of us can get the support we need to enjoy our later years.
The Scottish Government, the NHS and Scotland's local authorities have already started thinking about what the future may look like.
But we know we don't have a monopoly on good ideas. That's why we have been asking the views of others such as people who use care services, unpaid carers and voluntary and charitable organisations.
Over the past year, the Scottish Government, NHS Scotland and Scotland's local councils have carefully considered how care for older people should be delivered in the future, seeking views across Scotland and modelling the costs and the funding options for the size and scope of care services we will need over the next 20 years.
An extensive public engagement exercise has taken place as part of the programme and we will seek the views of Parliament on proposals emerging from this and from the programme's workstreams.
We have allocated £70 million in 2011-12 within the NHS Budget to a Change Fund for NHS Boards and partner local authorities to redesign services to support the delivery of new approaches to improved quality and outcomes. This Fund will provide "bridge funding" in the form of a change fund for providers to invest in new models of care from April 2011.
The Change Fund will allow partners to implement local plans for use of their combined resources spent on older people. Plans for use of the funds are to be developed in partnership by health boards, local authorities and the third and independent sectors. They will focus on reducing delayed discharges, reducing unplanned emergency admissions to hospital, and making more innovative use of care home placements alongside improvements in care-at-home provision and housing-related support, and supporting unpaid carers.
The Fund will act as a powerful catalyst for change in promoting more effective joint planning, commissioning and delivery of services across the health, social care and housing spectrum.
More details can be found in the Change Fund section on this web page and the Joint Improvement Team website.
If you have any questions please email the Reshaping Care team or phone 0131 244 4020.
Shona Robison, Minister for Public Health