Doing business in the NHS: exploring dentists' decisions to practise in the public and private sectors

Through discussion of the findings of a national study of general dental practitioners this paper explores the beliefs, values and practices of dentists, the factors that influence their decisions to practise in the public and/or private sectors, and their experiences of making the transition towards increased private practice. In examining particularly their ideological beliefs, attitudes to business and entrepreneurial behaviour, it considers the appropriateness in sociological thinking of the division between perspectives which have perceived professional behaviour as primarily motivated by economic self-interest and occupational control, and those which have considered professional behaviour to be characterised by altruistic values and a public-spirited concern for patient welfare.