WHO EVEN KNEW BRITAIN HAD DENTISTS?:

It’s no surprise that dentists have stopped NHS work (Vicki Woods, 12 Dec 2008, Daily Telegraph)

I can save Alan Johnson some time. The Health Secretary announced that he was setting up an inquiry into why 1.2 million people have “lost” their NHS dentist. I know why. It all went wrong in 2005, when the Government’s time and motion people devised a whizzy “New Dental Contract”. Barry Cockcroft, the chief dental officer, endorsed it as “carefully considered, fully consulted and rigorously trialled”.

Oh yes? Dentists’ NHS pay was henceforth rebranded as their annual contract value (ACV), based on their income in the year before the contract was introduced. For this ACV, they were to provide a set quota of units of dental activity (UDA) for NHS patients.

Dentists call these “udders”. The system is so tightly micromanaged that it’s as impossible to explain as a Budget book. But two things were immediately clear: if a dentist didn’t do enough udders in the given year, his money would be cut. But if he did extra udders, he would earn no extra pay. Two thousand dentists immediately left the NHS.