It was Christmas Eve when I bought the turkey for Christmas this year.
That's a classic Campbell situation.
Alison is dead relaxed with this stuff, and we went on the 23rd to try and get a turkey in different places, but couldn't get one.
As luck would have it, though, I pitched up at the 100-year-old butcher's at the top of the hill in the next village along, the one that's famous and supplies restaurants and all sorts, it's beautiful, I've written about it here years ago.
I phoned him in the morning and asked if there were any turkeys, and they said, " Sure, just come up". I went up about 8 o'clock on Christmas Eve in the morning, and they were queuing out the door. When I got to the door, there was a wonderful lady there with a clipboard, asking me if I'd ordered a turkey. I said, “No, I'm really sorry, I’m looking for a bailout, we're having a disaster”.
She said that there was no problem, and the guys would help; I just had to go over to this part of the shop. The service was extraordinary, and I probably paid more than I would have done if I'd got it at the supermarket, probably got a much better turkey too. In future, I'll go there at the start of December and order it.
But it's the context here, it's the comparison between going to the deli counter at the supermarket and taking a ticket. It's much cheaper to have the ticket machine, much less personal, much less memorable, much more horrible.
So, it's interesting that I found out the other day, when I was chatting to someone in the dental industry who knows their s**t, that they were recounting the story of a brand-new practice that's opened up with 13 surgeries in it for the NHS. What you do is you go in and take a ticket at reception, what happens then is that someone shouts, “ticket number 54 to surgery 12”, and you go to surgery 12.
This is where we've got to, this is how the NHS will have to work. If you want to make it work as a proper business, you'd better strip out all the humanity you can and add in all the efficiency you can, because, as the clever people tell us, the NHS is likely to grow to 2.5% this year, and inflation is at 3.5%.
You do the maths.
If you were trying to run NHS practices and you were wondering why you were making less money, or if you're entirely an NHS associate, and you were wondering why you were making less money, then the answer is right there.
I would rather do the opposite thing; I would rather push it in the opposite direction, but the race to the top is difficult. It's fraught with fear and uncertainty, and it is in no way easier. You must be on it all the time, improving, improving, improving, providing a product which is worth what you are charging and having a team that does the same.
Our boot camp for business, the week-long course that teaches you all you need to know to write your business plan and leave the course with your plan intact on aspects of vision, value and mission statements, finance, marketing, sales, human resources, leadership, and strategy and planning, starts in April.
If you're wondering how you're going to make it, balancing NHS with private, who you’re going to flip and race to the top instead of racing to the bottom. It's an extraordinary place to start.
Blog Post Number - 4424
Colin Campbell, Chris Barrow, and an intrepid group of dentists will be cycling across the plains of Tanzania from Kilimanjaro in early February 2026. If you would like to support the charity, Bridge to Aid, and this extraordinary challenge, please click here.
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