EXTRA dentists from abroad are to be drafted into the York and Selby area to help ease the massive shortage, it was announced today.

In a letter to York MP Hugh Bayley, Health Minister Rosie Winterton revealed that Selby and York Primary Care Trust (PCT) would be one of the first in the country to benefit from the programme.

Up to 1,000 extra dentists will be recruited nationally by encouraging them to return from career breaks, reduce their private practice and do more for NHS patients, and by enlisting qualified English-speaking dentists from abroad.

The Evening Press previously reported that York still has a shortage of dentists, despite increased government funding, and there is not a single NHS dental practice in the city accepting new patients.

Wigginton Dental Practice and Flynn's Dental Practice at 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.

Mr Bayley has persuaded the Health Minister to meet the PCT today to discuss providing extra resources to help them implement the new dental strategy, which is designed to combat the shortage.

Miss Winterton will also meet staff and patients at local York dental practice, R S Dobson & Associates, in Lawrence Street.

Mr Bayley said: "Rosie Winterton agreed to come to York to meet health managers and dentists to discuss how we use our share of the extra £368 million that Labour is putting into NHS dentistry to ensure that everyone in York soon gets access to NHS dental care.

"Steps need to be taken to persuade current dentists to stay in the NHS and to recruit more hygienists and nurses to reduce the pressure on dentists. In the long term we need to train more dentists, and I have made a proposal to Rosie Winterton to create a School of Dentistry within the new York/Hull Medical School.

"In the short term, we need to use the extra money to recruit more dentists for NHS practices from here and abroad.

"It is essential that a solution is found to the shortage of dentists in York, so that my constituents can get a high standard of dental treatment on the NHS."

Updated: 13:54 Monday, July 26, 2004