It is good news that Bristol is to get more NHS dentists.

This is an example of money being well spent and providing it is a permanent measure it will go some way to answering a real need.

After all we pay for it.

Our National Insurance contributions go to help provide NHS dentists. Yet increasingly over the past years dentists have opted out of the NHS and offered only private treatment.

Many, but not all, continue to take children as NHS patients.

And scandalously, some have said children already on their books as NHS patients have to become private patients or they will not continue to treat them.

That means parents having to pay for costly private insurance plans or trying to find a different dentist.

What does that say about dentists as a caring profession?

The trouble is these days unless you are prepared to become a private patient dental places are at a premium.

Ironically, dentists are the ones who have created this situation and they are the ones who benefit from it.

Hopefully the Government will spend more money on NHS dentists.

Then perhaps the balance will be redressed and dentists, particularly those who refuse to treat children as NHS patients, will be made to think again.

For surely the majority of dental treatment for youngsters is relatively routine and therefore inexpensive. And if a dentist secures the trust of someone as a child they may well have that patient well into their adult years.

No one likes changing dentists, but aren't we are all sick to death of dentists changing the rules at our expense?