There are strong reasons for developing practice in older people's health care but the concept is complex. Practice development means helping practitioners within their 'real world' context: helping them to find creative and positive ways forward through the demanding, often confusing and draining day-to-day trials and tribulations of practice. Practice development is a continuous journey without a defined end point or final destination. There are always improvements to be made, new ways of seeing things, discoveries to be made and challenges that need to be met ( Pritchard and Cooney 2002 ).