A GOVERNMENT minister believes improved working practices and heavy investment will keep York dentists in the NHS.

Health minister Rosie Winterton said a package of reforms put forward by the Government will ease the current dental crisis in the city.

She was speaking as she visited the RS Dobson Dental Practice, in Lawrence Street, York, to talk with frontline staff and patients.

The practice, which has more than 8,000 registered patients, will pilot new working practices from next month, designed to give dentists more time with patients and greater freedom in running the surgery.

Earlier in the day, the minister met senior managers of Selby and York Primary Care Trust (PCT) to discuss providing extra resources to help implement a new dental strategy.

York currently has a shortage of dentists, despite increased government funding, and there is not a single NHS practice in the city accepting new patients.

Wigginton Dental Practice and Flynn's Dental Practice, in Acomb, recently announced that they were withdrawing from the NHS, forcing thousands of patients to join a private payment scheme if they wished to continue receiving treatment at their current surgery.

Miss Winterton urged any other York dentist thinking of turning their back on the health service to discuss their concerns with the PCT and look at the benefits offered by the introduction of new working practices.

Dentist Robert Dobson, who has worked at the Lawrence Street practice for 12 years, said it had been a pleasure to meet the minister.

"To be honest, we are very happy with the NHS," he said. "But there are a multitude of reasons why other practices choose to leave."

Miss Winterton's visit was arranged by York MP Hugh Bayley after he held crisis talks with the PCT, Strategic Health Authority and dentists' representatives.

Miss Winterton also visited Tees, East and North Yorkshire Ambulance Service (TENYAS), which she announced would receive an extra £90,000 after consistently reaching 75 per cent of patients in serious and life-threatening conditions within eight minutes.

Updated: 10:46 Tuesday, July 27, 2004