Children suffer in dentist shortage

The shortage of dentists doing NHS work has affected children, new figures show today.

A quarter of parents of 12-and 15-year-olds say they have had difficulties finding an NHS dentist for their child.

All children qualify for free treatment but more dentists are shunning NHS work for more lucrative private work.

Britain has one of the worst records on dentistry with one practitioner for every 2,500 people. In a worldwide study of 29 comparable countries it is 27th.

An investigation by the Evening Standard revealed that six in 10 Londoners do not have access to an NHS dentist.

Now a survey by the Office of National Statistics has revealed a fifth of parents of five- and eight-year-olds found it hard to get a dentist to treat their child.

The 2003 Children's Dental Health Survey showed more than half of eight-year-olds in "non-deprived" schools had tooth decay compared with 70 per cent in deprived schools.

The survey also found the proportion of children seeing a dentist before the age of two has more than doubled in the last 10 years.