HEALTH seems to be the number one concern these days. We are bombarded with messages about what is good for us and what is not. Eat this, don't eat that - don't ever smoke that and, please, don't drink too much of that.

Yet while all these bossy messages and alarming images, including the fat-oozing cigarettes in an anti-smoking campaign of the moment, are everywhere we look, many people can't find a dentist willing to treat them on the National Health Service.

There seems to be something very wrong here. We are encouraged to look after our health through diet and exercise, yet we can, it seems, walk round with a mouth full of rotten teeth and no one cares.

The crisis in NHS dentistry has been a long time coming. Over the years the difficult relationship between private practice and NHS treatment has been placed under great strain. Many Dentists seem to believe their relationship with the NHS does not benefit them properly, and so are instead concentrating on private practice.

When an NHS dentist recently said she was setting up in Scarborough, queues of would-be patients stretched round the block. There is clearly a need in the town for an NHS dentist - and the lack of dental care is harming other towns and cities, including York.

Dentists in the city are taking on patients from Scarborough, leaving some local residents at the end of a lengthening queue for care.

This is surely not how an NHS dental service is intended to work. In York at present there is only one dentist prepared to take on new NHS patients. Private dentistry is expensive and way beyond the means of many people. Dental problems can be extremely painful and debilitating. This situation needs to be sorted out by the Government before we become a rotten-toothed nation.

Updated: 10:11 Monday, March 01, 2004