A DENTAL practice could lose five of its dentists by next spring because health bosses will be unable to fund them.

Four qualified dentists and a dental therapist based at the Unsworth Smile Clinic, in Parr Lane, could lose their jobs as a new contract is introduced in April by the Department of Health.

The contracts will see dentists given a guaranteed income based on what they have earned in 2005 instead for each NHS treatment they perform.

But, because the staff at the Smile Clinic have not worked at the practice for a full year, practice owner Omer Butt claims to have been told Bury Primary Care Trust (PCT) will not receive the funding from the Department of Health to pay them.

Mr Butt said: "My dentists are absolutely fuming. Because they have not been working at the practice for over a year, the PCT are not going to pay them the money to stay there because they say the Department of Health is not giving them money for it even though there is a shortage of dentists in the area."

The clinic was established in December 2003 by Mr Butt and, over the following two years, he has built up his team of dentists with around 5,500 registered patients seeing up to 600 new patients every month. The new contracts aim to make access to treatment simpler and fairer and stop dentists from having to carry out treatment to be paid, which some believe led to dentists over-treating patients. But Mr Butt believes his dentists could now leave before April to work in other areas where there will be jobs.

Mr Butt added: "I do not fully blame the PCT because they are only telling me what they know, but they need to fight the Department of Health for the 8,500 unregistered patients."

Stephen Mills, deputy chief executive for Bury PCT, said: "Bury PCT is in discussion with all dental practitioners in the borough in relation to new contractual arrangements from April. Every dental practice is going through the same process to ensure fairness.

"From next year, practices will receive funding from the PCT to provide high quality dental services in line with their new contract. The funding practices receive is based on dental activity over a 12 month test period. Some practices may wish to provide a lesser or greater volume of work than determined from this test period and the PCT is in negotiation with a number of practices in this respect."