NORTH Yorkshire dental patients whose treatment has been delayed for months are finally being allowed to see an orthodontist.

Yesterday we reported how the cash-strapped North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust (PCT) was continuing its heavy restrictions on orthodontic treatment and oral surgery.

Bosses said in March they were reviewing their services in these areas.

They insisted that patients needing surgery such as wisdom tooth extraction or orthodontic treatment would have to be assessed by a primary care trust "exceptions" panel first.

More than 800 people have had their cases sent to the PCT since the review of services started - and as a result, some 300 have been refused.

The PCT originally said the review would last three months, but it has now emerged no date has been set for it to finish.

Meanwhile, the restriction has meant patients have had to wait months for their treatment, even if they are in pain.

Dr Jay Kindelan, lead clinician in orthodontics at York Hospital, said four of his clinics in Harrogate had been virtually empty of new patients over the last few months.

But now nearly 60 patients had suddenly been sent to the hospital and he was having to lay on extra clinics to cope with the sudden workload.

Some of them had been waiting for ten or 11 weeks to be referred.

In York, clinics had not run empty because waiting times were longer than they were in Harrogate - and only eight new patients had recently filtered through the PCT's restriction.

Mr Kindelan said: "I think the PCT should go back to a direct referral from the dentist to a hospital consultant.

"This bureaucratic process is just holding patients up, and, in a lot of cases, inappropriately denying them access to our services."

A PCT spokesman said: "The referrals are clinically assessed by an oral surgeon to see whether they would be best served by primary care, secondary care or specialist dental services.

"The exceptions panel is used should a dentist feel that there is exceptional need for a patient to receive a particular type of care other than that decided through the initial assessment process, or if additional information about the case becomes available."

Our Let Your Doctor Decide campaign has called on the PCT to scrap its prior approval system for exceptional cases.

More than 2,000 readers backed our campaign, after doctors and dentists argued the PCT's system interfered with medics' decisions.

The prior approval system is currently vetting patients sent by their doctors for treatments like back injections and IVF - as well as for orthodontics and oral surgery.