Dentistry is in a mess in Bradford, as elsewhere in the country. It is of considerable concern that despite improvements in some areas, on average half the people in the district are not registered with a dentist under the NHS - a worse situation than five years ago.

The switch to new contracts does not seem to have helped. Not only have many dentists refused to sign up to them, but those who have accepted them have largely done so reluctantly. And there is also a danger that those patients who still have access to an NHS dentist might be deterred from visiting him or her because the three levels of charging laid out under the new system make many visits considerably more expensive than before, particularly if the work to be done is at the lower end of very broad pricing bands.

Now that the details of the new contracts have become clear they appear to be unsatisfactory from both the dentists' and the patients' points of view. Unfortunately, though, patients have little choice other than to go along with the new system if they want to continue to have their teeth cared for under the NHS rather than pay to be treated privately, which will almost certainly cost them even more.

The Primary Care Trusts in Bradford and Airedale are striving to recruit and fund more dentists. We hope they succeed. But there probably needs to be a wholesale rethink of dental provision in this country before there can be any significant improvement.