'We are just meeting patient demand'

Younger dentists are turning their back on the NHS, official figures suggest.

Experts say they do not have the public sector ethos of their older colleagues. What do young dentists have to say about this?

Mr Atkins says patients often demand private consultations

Ben Atkins is perhaps exceptional among his dental peers.

At the age of 32, he runs his own nine-dentist practice in Manchester, after building it up over the course of seven years.

The Rocky Lane Dental Practice gets 80% of its income from NHS patients, but Mr Atkins still believes the increasing shift towards private practice is a good thing.

He said: "What we are seeing is patients exercising more and more choice. They are prepared to pay for the extra services and time they can get through private consultations so are therefore opting out of the NHS.

"At my practice, we set out the options and prices to patients and let them decide. I think this is the way the health service as a whole is going.

"Lots of people want cosmetic dentistry and that is their right.

"For example, many patients will say they do not want the silver fillings and are prepared to pay for white fillings."

Lack of opportunities

Mr Atkins also denies younger dentists are willfully turning their backs on the NHS.

Instead, he believes younger dentists still want to do NHS work, but are often faced by a lack of opportunities.

When he qualified from Sheffield University's dental school in 1998, he said there were often pages and pages of NHS job adverts in the trade press.

"Now you may be get two or three pages. The jobs are just not there like they used to be so quite often the younger dentists are forced to do more private work.

"Dentistry has changed. I know there are problems accessing the NHS in certain places, but that is not because dentists do not want to do NHS work