We have been alerted to an error in this Observations article by Fiona Patterson, in which she responds to a personal view by Parashkev Nachev on the United Kingdom's new Medical Training and Applications Service (MTAS) (BMJ 2007;335:802, 20 Oct, doi: 10.1136/bmj.39360.727535.59). Mid-way through her article, Patterson referred to her company (Work Psychology Partnership) as having “won an open competition tender organised by the Department of Health” [to advise on selection methodology]. In fact, the invitation to tender was not advertised publicly, although it was a competitive process. In line with Department of Health procurement policy, a number of suppliers with experience in this area were invited to tender for this work, and two of these suppliers submitted a formal tender. Patterson was not aware of how many suppliers tendered for the contract at the time of writing this article.