WORCESTER patients wanting dental care will now have to travel out of the city to get an appointment on the NHS.

The two remaining NHS dental practices in the city are closing their books and are accepting no more new patients.

Both Abbotsbury Court and Lyppard Grange dental practices, in St Peter's and Warndon, are changing their policy.

The nearest NHS dentist taking on new patients and with available appointments is now in Droitwich, and the only alternatives are to travel to Bromsgrove, wait until July for an appointment, or fork out extra cash on pricey private treatment.

Alan McMichael, consultant in dental health with South Worcestershire Primary Care group, said the decision was regrettable.

He added many schemes, including offering £25,000 incentives to new practices and an international recruitment drive, had been tried but with no success.

"While these schemes have undoubtedly helped offset some problems, it is impossible, practically speaking, to hold capacity in reserve to absorb large numbers of de-registered patients if a dental practice decides to discontinue NHS care," he said.

Capacity

"We will continue our efforts to further capacity in dental practices, and have recently had discussions with another dentist who is considering opening another practice in the city."

"But in the meantime we may not be able to offer immediate registration with a new NHS dentist."

Lyppard Grange dental surgery refused to comment when contacted by the Evening News, but admitted it was likely no more NHS patients would be taken on to its 14,000-strong patient list.

Tim Davies, senior dentist at the Abbotsbury Court surgery, said the move was a result of pressure caused by increased patient numbers and lack of funding and trained dentists to lighten the load.

He said its list of more than 12,000 would now be closed to new NHS patients, and current patients would be given the choice to go private over the next six months.

"We have resisted it for a long time, but we have come to the point where there are so many patients we feel we can't look after them as well as we could," he said.

Worcestershire Health Authority spokeswoman Janet Ferguson insisted there were still dentists in the city offering NHS treatment but declined to name them.