I’m not particularly proud to say this, and it’s taken a while and it’s been a bit of a struggle to be honest, but I appear to be out of the public health system. I now have a private GP and a private dentist, mainly because I felt like I had no choice. Is this the way it’s going to be?

Here’s how it happened. First: the dentist. I’ve always had trouble with my teeth and need lots of work and I’ve had the same brilliant dentist for more than 30 years. However, there came a point when he was withdrawing from NHS work and in the nicest possible way, he gave me a choice: go private or leave the practice. So I went private.

I do not blame him for doing this. The British Dental Association says rising costs and inadequate fees can leave dentists carrying out NHS treatments at a loss, which is unsustainable. And while the Scottish Government has made some changes, the tinkering hasn’t fixed the underlying problems. Obviously, dentists going private makes things worse on the face of it, but it’s understandable. Would you keep working at a loss?

A similar situation applies to GPs. There aren’t enough of them, the number of doctors getting out of the job is rising, and there’s increasing pressure from the patients, who are getting older and sicker and fatter. The BMA did a survey of GPs in........

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