NHS dentists in Barnsley are failing to hit their treatment targets by almost a quarter, the Chronicle can reveal.
Mike Speakman, of Hanson’s dental surgery, Huddersfield Road, represents the town’s dentists as chairman of the Local Dental Committee and blames the new contracts for the failure.
The figures were leaked to the Chronicle by a concerned dentist who, like many of his colleagues, believes the NHS deal, which has been in place a year, is unworkable.
The Primary Care Trust set contracts for a boroughwide value of 416,216 units of dental activity (UDAs). March's figures still need to be added but even so only 328,605 UDAs have been completed.
Mr Speakman said he expects 40 to 50 per cent of dentists will not meet the targets - because the original calculations for the work they were expected to do were wrong.
