PLANS to tackle York's NHS dental crisis and take on more than 30,000 new patients are being drawn up by health officials, the Evening Press can reveal.

Officials hope 16,000 places will be created at dental surgeries over three years as city practices switch to a new contract system.

They say numbers will be boosted even further over the next six to 18 months, when a new "super" dental base serving 8,000 people is built and an existing practice expands to take on a further 8,000 NHS patients.

John Renshaw, the North Yorkshire-based chairman of the British Dental Association, hailed the York and Selby Primary Care Trust's (PCT) ambitious proposals, saying they would go a long way towards solving the problem of residents in York and Selby accessing NHS help.

The crisis was highlighted as new figures showed a massive dip in the number of people in North Yorkshire registered with NHS dentists. When the Evening Press recently phoned an NHS helpline to find the nearest available service, we were told to go to Wetherby.

Experts estimate a "crude" figure of between 10,000 and 20,000 people who might need an NHS dentist in the PCT area. Of the 287,000 PCT population, 152,000 NHS patients are currently registered.

But dental experts say the true level of demand is hard to calculate as more firms could go private, records were not kept of how many people were registered outside the York and Selby area and it was hard to calculate how many people would register from outside the area once more places became available.

Mr Renshaw said the problem would be recruiting dentists, and the proposed creation of a new £50 million Hull/York dental school would be "the icing on the cake." A Government decision on that is due later this year.

The proposals came to light after a city dental practice hit out at the PCT for not backing its plans for a massive new second practice for 12,000 NHS patients.

Bosses at Clock House Dental claimed they were thwarted by red tape for nine months, and told how they had 15 dentists waiting in the wings for the £1 million investment.

It was while they were being quizzed about Clock House gripes that health officials revealed they already had plans in hand.

Under the new contract arrangements, instead of dentists being paid per crown or filling, practices will now get a lump sum to provide a mix of preventative and routine work.

Denise Smith, head of primary care delivery at the PCT, said: "As part of negotiations with these 15 practices we have agreed expansion plans of 16,384 new NHS registrations over a three-year period. To date we have delivered 3,477 of these."

The PCT had reached agreement in principle for a new dental practice in York offering 8,000 new patient registrations, and for the expansion of an existing practice in York offering another 8,000, but she could not provide further details as contract talks were ongoing.

She said if there was further demand, Clock House plans would be looked at again, but she warned that overprovision would destabilise the system.

Updated: 10:03 Tuesday, May 03, 2005