A chilly draft

Draft documents are fun, especially as they are increasingly disclosed under freedom of information legislation. They allow authors to make the most outrageous suggestions, which can then be denied by the great and the good on the grounds that ‘it is only a draft document’. So let us dream up a draft document on car servicing

It might start something like this: ‘Historically, car owners have been encouraged to visit their garage every twelve months. Those with the highest level of motivation and in general better maintained cars have come to expect this from contact with garage services as they attend for reassurance and often have their car washed and valeted, rather than attending after an interval that is based on their car maintenance needs’.

OK, that draft does not exist, but replace ‘car owners’ with ‘dental patients’, ‘every twelve months’ with every six months’ and ‘garage services’ with ‘dental services’ and we have not a draft document but an actual one put out by the health department. Its dental access team is against everyone having a six month recall, labelling it as ‘inappropriate’ and it wants to discourage this well established and liked practice.