When the vending machine runs out.

We're all familiar with the sight of an angry person hitting a vending machine into which they have put money, and what they want doesn't come out—that look of puzzlement and incomprehension.

It crossed my mind as I listened to the news that Westminster has allocated £280m to try and ensure GPs do more face to face consultations. It is the latest in a long line of initiatives defined in terms of money intended to address issues money has little to do with and far more to do with relationships, understanding, empathy, and a clear sense of purpose.

It feels like some bizarre "Skinner Box" behavioural psychology experiment. Get the pigeon to push the button to get a reward. We have now been doing that for so long, encouraged by business schools and consultants, that we seem to have entered a place of unthinking responses, a place of "willful blindness."

We see the same befuddlement as commentators talk in breathless terms about the prospect of a lack of plushy toys for Christmas and talk of…