DENTISTS may choose to leave the National Health Service when new contracts due to come into force in October next year, Kennet and North Wilts Primary Care Trust has been warned.

Andy Sprod, who delivered a paper on the allocation of dental access funds to the PCT board's meeting in Devizes on Tuesday, said: "We may lose more dentists as a result."

Although the Department for Health has not yet produced the final drafts of the new contract, dentists are being encouraged to sign new contracts on the basis of Personal Dental Services.

This new type of contract enables dentists to receive a regular monthly income instead of submitting claims for each individual piece of work they carry out for the NHS.

PCTs will be responsible for primary dental care budgets from April next year. Workshops are currently being held with dentists to keep them up to date with all aspects of the changes.

PCTs in Wiltshire and Swindon have received £540,000, a share of the national £35 million capital funding to encourage the establishment of more NHS dental practices.

Kennet and North Wilts PCT has received eight bids, far more than the £162,000 it has to spend on them would finance.

Mr Sprod said that three bids are being recommended, which will cost £156,000. The new money will more than double the percentage of people, an extra 2,265 patients both children and adults, receiving NHS dentistry in Kennet and North Wiltshire.