Our dedicated practitioners hampered by rotten system

MANY patients in West Yorkshire where I have my practice have significant dental needs.

There are many practitioners here who are ready and willing to offer that treatment, myself included.

The current NHS system in England limits the number of patients who can be seen.

Targets, penalties and red tape make it even more difficult for those willing to provide care to do so in a sustainable way.

British-trained dentists are the best in the world. They have shown their preparedness to go the extra mile in helping disadvantaged communities.

Sadly their capabilities and commitment are not matched by those who design the system.

The NHS Contract is rotten and works only because of the goodwill of the

professionals who serve it. I have spent the early days of 2018 dealing with patients who have suffered pain and mishap during the holidays.

Many of them are suffering from preventable conditions but either they have insufficient funds to attend the dentist regularly or need help and education in terms of the prevention of disease.

In a pressurised system it is the very patients who need the most care who are let down by a widely condemned contractual arrangement.

Tooth extractions and the treatment of acute gum infections should not be the order of the day in 21st-century Britain.

The answer to England’s NHS dental access crisis is not turning to charities, either here or abroad.

The UK model depends on decent policies, not on kindhearted citizens.

Sadly in Yorkshire charities are already providing care the NHS could and should provide.

Ministers have failed to fix a broken system based on tick boxes and targets, which effectively caps the number of patients we can treat.

We need resources and preventionbased reform.

Mick Armstrong is the chairman of the British Dental Association and an NHS dentist with a practice in Castleford, West Yorkshire.