THE shortfall in NHS Dentists in York and North Yorkshire is about to get worse, with two more practices announcing they are to go private.

Dentists at Acomb Dental Centre, in York, and N Mediratta dental surgery, in Tadcaster, have told their patients that from April they will no longer be doing NHS work because of changes to their contracts.

Yesterday the Evening Press revealed that nearly 400 people who were offered a place with an NHS dentist in Sherburn-in-Elmet have been left in limbo after the offer was retracted.

Neil Mediratta, who owns his Bridge Street practice, said new funding arrangements through Selby and York Primary Care Trust (PCT) meant he was unable to continue NHS work.

He said: "I feel extremely hard done by. The amount they are asking me to do is just unreasonable. Because I want to spend more time with my patients, I am being penalised for it."

Mr Mediratta said he had been an NHS dentist for 12 years, and going private had been a difficult decision.

He wrote to his adult patients with the news, and said he was still negotiating with the PCT over whether his NHS service for children would continue.

He said: "I do not want to have to do this, but unfortunately it is necessary for a better quality of service. I can't churn out 40 patients a day on a conveyor belt."

Lynda Allman, of Acomb Dental Centre, in Front Street, contacted her patients to announce that her practice's NHS service for children will stop in April. The surgery is already private for adults.

She said: "We just felt the contract did not provide enough funding to treat the children to the standard we expect.

"We are all about treating people as we would like to be treated ourselves, and if we have to do it on a private basis, so be it.

"Not one of the dentists in the practice wanted to do this. We had all hoped to keep the children on the NHS. They should be a priority, but equally we have to fund it properly."

A spokesman for Selby and York PCT said: "We are aware of a small number of dentists who may choose not to continue to offer NHS services. Where practices make that decision, under new arrangements, the resources remain with the PCT and we will commission alternative NHS dental services."

Updated: 10:32 Thursday, January 26, 2006