'NHS dental quotas have created a crazy situation'

Dr Nilesh Parmar says it is "crazy" that his ready and willing staff cannot treat patients due to funding

The owner of a dental practice has warned that current funding means it cannot treat NHS patients beyond the autumn.

Dr Nilesh Parmar, who is based in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, said surgeries were given a quota of how much NHS work they could do each year.

The dentist said it had created a "crazy situation" where he had enough staff to tackle Essex's dental waiting list - but was not allowed the funding.

A Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) spokesperson said work was ongoing to reform dental contracts.

Dr Parmar said he was given a set sum of money to fund how much NHS work his three full-time dentists could undertake.

Dr Parmar runs Parmar Dental in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex

Despite a "ridiculous" amount of demand in Essex, his staff would have to stop the work once the money ran out, he said.

"It just seems like a crazy situation where you've got a clinic which is ready to do more treatment and do more NHS work, but we're going to have to stop because we just don't have the funding to do it," Dr Parmar added.

"It's almost like saying to a hospital 'you can see 300 patients this year, and once you see 300 patients you have to send them away' - and that's exactly what we're having to do."

Dr Parmar, who qualified as a dentist in 2004, estimated that he would have run out of his NHS quota by the end of the summer.

He said efforts to appeal for more funding were unsuccessful.

"We know that Essex has a really high need for NHS treatments at the moment," he continued.

"When it's healthcare you can't put quotas on it - it just doesn't work."

The government announced in March that dental practices would benefit from extra cash for taking on new NHS patients as part of a Patient Premium scheme.

It came as part of a dental recovery plan that would create up to 2.5 million more appointments in 2024, the DHSC spokesperson said.

"As a result, more dental practices are already accepting new adult and child patients across England," they added.

"We are also continuing our work on reforming the dental contract so that dentists are paid properly for more complex work."