SIR -- The reputation of your newspaper as providing well informed comment on local issues was diminished by the headline ' Dentists give NHS patients the push' (Saturday, March 11).

Dentists are independent contractors to the health service and most treat a proportion of their patients privately. This proportion has increased over the last decade due to inadequate NHS fees and the fact that money - in the form of grants and incentives to encourage local dentists to stay in the NHS - has been diverted by the PCTs into the local community dental budget to fund dental access centres.

These clinics are infrequently staffed, expensive to set up and run, and provide no continuity of care for patients but have kept the available monies in the budget of the PCT.

At the 11th hour, the PCT has decided not to award children-only contracts to local dental practices who treat their adult patients privately. Amounts of money, reflecting current spending on dental treatment for children and patients exempt from charges, will be allocated to the PCT to spend, so where will it go? You guessed it, into the PCT budget deficit. Your older readers know that the Bath road dental practice has provided NHS dentistry to the people of Worcester for more than 40 years and the Droitwich practice is well known as a centre of excellence. It is not dentists who are doing the pushing it is the accountants at the PCT.

Dr R K BURGESS,

Pershore.