Sir, I read the letter from S. Ward1 with a heavy heart but no great surprise. My own response to similar queries as to the price of my services was to point the patient – and I still regard them as patients – to the writings of John Ruskin:

'There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price only is that man's lawful prey.'

If Mr Moyes insists that we no longer have patients but customers, how long will it be before we have the equivalent of supermarkets selling horsemeat labelled as beef?

Professional healthcare is not and can never be retailing and if Mr Moyes and the GDC believe that it should, they should not be regulating a profession.