Third time lucky

'It is the responsibility of the leadership and the management to give opportunities and put demands on people which enable them to grow as human beings in their work environment,' Sir John Harvey-Jones once said. We really need the health department to understand this concept. Their comment on the new proposals for piloting the new contract states: 'Dentists tend to be quick to respond to incentives in the contract, any perverse incentive can lead to perverse effects in practice.'

Immediately the following questions come to mind: does it really take an Oxbridge qualified Civil Servant to tell us this, if this is known why create a problem in full knowledge of the consequences of your actions, why don't they create a system that rewards good dentists for caring for their patients and what stops them asking for those who had the answers to stand up and be counted?

Clearly the smart move is to choose the smartest mix of GDPs to populate the working group who will create the new contract. However, they choose all but one of the team from a salaried background to devise the scheme for GDPs who are backing their commitment to the NHS with their many pounds of investment in their practices. The only GDP on the team is in subsidised NHS premises. None of these will feel the pain of wrong decisions. So why deliberately exclude those who will? Answers on the back of a postage stamp, please!