Dentistry and this back door privatisation should alarm us – Yorkshire Post Letters

ANOTHER brilliant article from Jayne Dowle full of basic common sense (The Yorkshire Post, May 27). She tells it as it is!

I am 75 years old and have had excellent dental treatment via the NHS, first in Barnsley, up to the age of 27, then in Bradford, and for the last 43 years at Sherburn-in-Elmet, Tadcaster.

This has now come to an abrupt halt, supposedly because of the extra cleaning and sterilisation of the surgery associated with Covid.

Non-availability of GP and dental appointments is scandalous – Jayne Dowle

The practice cannot remain viable economically by taking NHS patients as well as private patients. When advised of this by the practice, I contacted nine dentists within a 10-mile radius of Church Fenton, my home, in Tadcaster, Selby and Knottingley, to be told that they all had long waiting lists for NHS patients and could not take me on.

I am left with having to pay £192 per annum plus £8 admin fee for two check-ups per year. I do not begrudge the dentists as I have always had excellent treatment, they have a long training, and it is a job I could not, nor want to do.

This is a disgrace Matt Hancock, privatisation of the NHS by the back door, and you are the man on the spot with your proud NHS lapel badge to put it right.

Conservative-led governments have starved the NHS of funds for many years, ignoring the cost of the many advances in medical science, never mind the bungled supply of PPE with reported huge profits being made by their friends. Before the next election, voters should ask themselves if the health of the nation and social care is a priority?

It must be properly paid for through taxation, both personal and commercial.

Avoidance must be made a serious criminal offence and severely dealt with. Those who can pay should pay. Remember supertax? Why not?

I remember my Dad telling me in the 1950s that the general income tax rate was 33 per cent –presumably to pay for the Second World War – and we are still here.

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