A YORK family has been left without a dentist after their city centre practice de-registered them and did not let them know.

Aldwark Dental Practice will no longer treat Iris Lee, her husband, Malcolm, and sons, Aaron, 30, and Ryan, 18, because they have not visited for a check-up in the last 15 months.

Mrs Lee, of Diamond Street, The Groves, York, only found out that they had been taken off the books, and their dentist had retired, when she rang the NHS surgery last week to make an appointment for Aaron. It is quite a while since we went for a check-up.

"We haven't had the reason to go," said Mrs Lee, 57, a patient at the surgery for six years. "We have never received a six-month reminder all the time we have been there.

"They never wrote or rang to say our dentist was leaving. I was told they didn't have the staff to write letters. The thing I am cross about is they just took us off and didn't let us know.

"We have been good patients and never missed an appointment."

Mrs Lee has tried to find a new dentist but all the city's NHS practices are full. She said: "We have no transport so we can't get that far out of York. We just can't get in anywhere unless we go private and we can't afford it."

Last month, the practice revealed it came close to de-registering thousands of its 12,000 patients because of severe staff shortages. The surgery usually has six dentists, but through illness, retirement and resignation it has at times been surviving with two.

Sandra Daborn, complaint co-ordinator for Integrated Dental Holdings, which owns the practice, apologised to Mrs Lee and admitted they had encountered problems because of the staff shortages.

"We are not obliged to send out reminders or letters when someone has been de-registered, but we like to do so out of courtesy. We are trying to do something about this, but patients should be mindful of when they are due to visit."

She said that Mrs Lee should write an official letter of complaint to the practice manager and they would do their best to help her as they are recruiting new dentists.

Updated: 10:28 Tuesday, October 26, 2004