title: Winners show how nursing should be.
abstract: How refreshing, after months of media coverage highlighting poor care, to be able to write about some of the wonderful services for older people that exist around the UK. The winners of the Help the Aged awards ( page 10 ) and the mental health scheme in Shropshire (page 20) demonstrate what can be achieved when nurses set out to improve the care and support available to older people. Such services are not developed and maintained without hard work, determination to overcome the inevitable obstacles and perseverance, but the difference they can make to older people's lives is well worth all of this, as the stories on the Cathedral Suite in Lincolnshire demonstrate.