Old Moore's Almanack

Many of you will, I imagine, be familiar with Moore's Law: the concept that computer processing power doubles roughly every two years. In 1971, about 2,000 transistor components could be fitted on a printed circuit board; by 2008 that number had increased to over 2bn.

This provides a sobering reminder about how our use of IT has intensified (and makes you wonder how the Lunar Lander ever functioned with less memory than the average pocket calculator). It's also an excellent demonstration of an 'exponential curve'.

I got to wondering whether there was an inverse curve of the same shape associated with methods of dentists' remuneration. The first 'fee per item' model lasted 42 years. The second model, registration with some continuing care and capitation, lasted about 16. The third, UDAs and local commissioning, will have managed only eight years by the time of its likely demise.

This leads me to suppose that by about 2020, there will be a new contract roughly every other week, which is why we will need the advanced computing power available to us by then to deal with it.