HUNDREDS of people queued three deep in Scarborough desperately trying, but in vain, to register as National Health Service dental patients.
An old woman extracted her own teeth with pliers. Many hundreds of others have been rejected by their once-welcoming dentist because they choose not to take on dental plans they cannot afford, or feel they should not need.
Take hope, unite and make your views known.
Primary Care Trusts now administer the NHS regulations for these services, but do not directly provide or commission them.
They are provided at the discretion of dentists and optometrists, who are independent contractors and, as is now being shown, can be withdrawn at will.
From April 2005 NHS dentistry will devolve to Primary Care Trusts who will then have a new legal obligation to ensure the delivery of high quality dental services to all who live, work in or visit our area.
They should be within easy reach, independent of private practice, free to children, those without wages and pensioners as soon as possible.
Leighton Croft,
Clifton, York.
Updated: 11:46 Wednesday, June 16, 2004
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