DENTISTS could be in for a cash windfall after Health Minister Andy Burnham announced plans for massive investment in updating surgeries and equipment. This is great news!

Decisions as to how to invest this money will be taken by individual Primary Care Trusts.

It is to be hoped, then, that this money goes to dentists, in ratio to the number of NHS patients each dentist has on his/her books.

In other words, that this money - NHS money - goes to those dentists who have stayed loyal to the NHS and to NHS patients.

Those dentists who preferred to go private, forcing thousands of patients to pay for private treatment, or try to find another dentist willing to take them on, should get little or nothing of this money. It would be a monstrous misuse of funds if this money goes to update private practices.

I would like to see new dental surgeries built into the new super-surgeries, being built throughout the borough. It would be ideal to have dentists, GPs, and other NHS, together, under one roof.

Let us hope that the Primary Care Trusts spend this money wisely. Or, better still, that Andy Burnham insists that they do.

Brian Derbyshire, Ribchester Grove, Bolton