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Carol Hill INTRODUCTION Over recent decades policies on ageing and older people have risen dramatically up political agendas across the UK, Europe and beyond. They are driven by growing awareness of the demographic shifts impacting on the age profile of many advanced industrial nations and the inherent challenges of meeting the needs of increasing proportions of older people. More recently, the specific remote and rural dimension to these challenges has been acknowledged as policy makers seek to determine how best to ensure appropriate levels of health and social welfare within a framework of finite, and even declining resources. Notwithstanding other differences within the national health and welfare systems of the northern periphery countries (Scotland, Northern Ireland, Sweden, Finland and Greenland) participating in the O4O: Older People for Older People project (O4O) that informs much of this book, each takes pride in its tradition of delivering universal tax-based national health and welfare systems which include provision, in varying degrees, for the health and personal care needs of older people. They are also committed to policy frameworks that value older people as both individuals and a resource for society, and seek to develop services on the basis of local need and resources that promote social inclusion and impact at community level.1 In the Nordic countries the role of the state in financing, organising and delivering welfare benefits has long been conditioned by the ‘political goal of encouraging strong social cohesion’ and underpinned by a set of ethical principles around the promotion of...