Consultants' negotiators have criticised the government's proposals in The NHS Plan to make new hospital consultants in England work exclusively for the NHS (5 August, p 317).

The government suggested that consultants could work for the NHS for “perhaps the first seven years of their career” and has proposed restrictions on the conduct of private practice for other consultants.

At a special meeting this week the negotiators who work for the 25 000 consultants in the United Kingdom described the proposals for an exclusive NHS contract as “unnecessary, contradictory, …