Our negotiators should try again

It should have been blindingly obvious to anyone a long time ago that GPs have been completely duped by this monstrous new contract. I do the finances for our practice. I have spent hours fiddling around trying to forecast superannuation payments and now estimate that our best available estimate, this year alone, will lead to about £4,000 by way of underpayment per full-time partner.

All that seductive talk of huge pay rises and next year's doubling of quality points is just that – seductive rubbish.

These new superannuation uplifts are a stealth tax by another name and don't be fooled. Simply reduce your income by 40 per cent tax and then reduce it again further by another 20 per cent – end of story. I, for one, detest what all this target-driven medicine will do to the real spirit and art of medicine. We have been served up a complete dog's breakfast and why is it only now that sensible GPs seem to be really asking the questions? Welcome to the new Kafkaesque world: GPs deserting the profession in droves for cleaner waters, or chained forever to a tick-box style of medicine; bound to a pensions noose about their necks and to a mountain of adminstrative inquisition so high they will, like Hercules, never complete their labours.

Dr Nicholas Down

Oxshott, Surrey