DENTISTS FORCED OUT OF NHS BY GOVERNMENT

Speaking in today's House of Commons debate on NHS dentistry Paul Holmes, MP for Chesterfield, challenged Rosie Winterton, Minister of State for Health Services, over her speech which was:

"Long on wishful thinking and short on reality."

"THE REALITY Paul said was that NHS dentists in Chesterfield, as across the rest of the country, were refusing to sign up to the Government's new NHS contract.

THE REALITY was that a wave of my Chesterfield constituents had contacted me in recent weeks because their dentist had written to them telling them that they no would longer undertake NHS work and that patients would either have to sign up for expensive private health insurance or look elsewhere for a dentist who would take NHS patients.

BUT THE REALITY was that they were finding it almost impossible to find any dentist in the Chesterfield area who would accept new NHS patients."

Afterwards Paul said: "This could be the end of NHS dentistry. The decay began in the 1990's when the Conservative Government closed two dental training schools and cut dentists fees by 7%. But the real rot is in the new contract being imposed from the 1st April by this Labour Government. Things are so bad that this Government have now BANNED would be patients from queuing outside the few dentists, across the country, who are signing up new NHS patients - because the huge queues are providing such embarrassing pictures in the press."