Hitting the nail on the head.

Stephen Hancocks (BDJ)in his editorial tells the tale of disaster that occurs as a result of a chain of events that ensue because of the lack of one nail. However, he goes on to hit the nail on the head (as he often does) when he refers to past perceived workforce shortages in dentistry, and policy and strategy that was based on this. The argument, from my point of view (and he appears to share this) is that there was never necessarily a shortage of dentists. It was simply that a substantial part of the workforce did not find the NHS offering suitable for them. It is therefore possible that increased training places, and recruitment from other countries, would have been totally unnecessary had there been an attractive NHS contract. It makes one wonder doesn't it?