I was honoured and delighted to write this article for the newly launched GDP-UK website. I have known Tony Jacobs as a friend and colleague for many, many years. I was aware of the group almost immediately but it took me almost two years to register (March 1999) after much gentle persuasion by Tony. There are so many colleagues who I have worked with and admired that are part of this group. For most of my time I’m ashamed to say I’ve been lurking. Vociferously shot down by members of the group on several occasions for things that often I never said nor did, I dread to think what would have happened had I really put my foot in it or hit the ‘send’ button before thinking things through! I find it though invaluable, informative and extremely entertaining. I look forward to the day when membership of the group becomes mandatory for continued registration!

Dentistry is in my mind still a fantastic profession – if I was going to university tomorrow I would not hesitate to choose dentistry. We recently celebrated the 10^th anniversary of the group I thought it appropriate to reflect on some of the changes we have seen in dentistry over the last ten years and start to think about what the next ten might bring.

So much has been said on this group about the now not so new NHS contract that I am not going to dwell on this – suffice to say there will always be major problems with anything that is not carefully piloted, tried, tested and any learnings reviewed before it is rolled out – now where have I heard that before? J