John Odgers (October 18), asks ‘why no doctors?’.

Well, one reason, but of course not the sole reason, is because the GMC (General Medical Council) basically a bizarre charity/quango which controls the licensing of doctors in the UK decided in its infinite wisdom a few years ago, to introduce a concept named ‘revalidation’.

What this does in effect, is to force some doctors – those who retire and may be in their sixties or late fifties and who wish to practice after retirement, out of the profession because under current GMC rules they have to pay to revalidate to practice.

So the revalidation process prevents many doctors who have taken retirement from returning to the profession.

Those that would return to the profession on a part-time basis for example, choose not to do so because they don’t want to want to pay a premium via revalidation.

One reason why there is a shortage of GPs.

And also why the NHS is recruiting foreign doctors to replace the GPs who are leaving the medical profession in droves.

Then of course, there are all those female GPs – many of whom only want to work part-time for whatever reason.

But that’s another story.

Andrew Martin

Weymouth