I FEEL that I should write to tell Mr Gray, and any other misinformed ignoramus, that the taxpayer, Government, health authorities, Department of Health, or indeed anyone else other than the dentist, does not provide, and has never provided, any capital funding to set up or fund a general dental practice.

What they do is that they buy treatment at a fee that they stipulate. This fee, I am afraid to say, is derisory. They also expect the dentist to arrange to collect 80 per cent of this fee and also bear the cost of any bad debts. These authorities have also imposed bureaucratic regulations that restrict the types of treatment available on the NHS and introduced legislation that makes it almost impossible for the dentist to cope with the numbers of patients requiring dental treatment.

A few years ago the Government thought that they could show dentists that general practice was easy to run and profitable. They opened "Access Centres" in many parts of England. These centres cost approximately £350,000 to set up, around £220,000 per year to run, and sometimes manage to generate in the region of £90,000 income. That is what the Government could do with the fees available. Needless to say, they have now abandoned this scheme and have returned to General Dental Practitioners with a new contract to try and get them to return to NHS practice.

I can assure you and Mr Gray that, had this money been made available to the general dental practitioner, there would still be many more dentists in this and other areas, offering dental treatment on the NHS.

John G Randall BDS DGDP RCS (Eng.)

Postgraduate Dental Tutor (Wigan and Bolton)

jgran.dental@boltblue.com

RE: "Dentists were built on NHS funds". I feel I should write to tell Mr Gray, and any other misinformed individual, that the taxpayer, Government, health authorities, Department of Health -- or indeed anyone else, other than the dentist -- does not provide any capital funding to set up or fund a general dental practice, and never has.

What they do is buy treatment at a fee that they stipulate. This fee, I am afraid to say, is derisory. They also expect the dentist to arrange to collect 80 per cent of this fee and also bear the cost of any bad debts.

These authorities have also imposed bureaucratic regulations that restrict the types of treatment available on the NHS, and introduced legislation that makes it almost impossible for the dentist to cope with the numbers of patients requiring dental treatment.

A few years ago the Government thought they could show dentists that general practice was easy to run and profitable. They opened access centres in many parts of England. These centres cost approximately £350,000 to set up, around £220,000 per year to run, and sometimes manage to generate in the region of £90,000 income.

That is what the Government could do with the fees available. Needless to say, they have now abandoned this scheme and have returned to general dental practitioners with a new contract to try to get them to return to NHS practice.

I can assure you and Mr Gray that, had this money been made available to the general dental practitioner, there would still be many more dentists in this and other areas, offering dental treatment on the NHS.