EU workers help the dental crisis.

Half of all the new dentists employed by the NHS are migrant workers who qualified abroad writes the Independent.  The majority of the 2,200 dentists entering the profession in the past year came from Eastern Europe underlining the reliance Britain has from the European Union.

NHS Information Centre published data showing the number of people on the books of an NHS practitioner rose by 500,000 - a 2.4% rise year-on year. Figures have shown that dental activity over the years has vastly increased with treatments being at a 10 year high of 33.2 million completed courses.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said "The NHS successfully recruited more than a 1,000 extra dentists from abroad in 2005 but our focus now is on increasing the number of home-grown dentists in the longer term. We have already created 100 new permanent places for dental students and plan to open a new dental school in the South-West".

The British Dental Association (BDA) said however, that the figures needed to be analysed accordingly.  Peter Ward, the chief executive of the BDS said: "We welcome dentists from overseas but this is only a short term solution to the shortage of dentists caused by poor workforce planning in the past.  We must also see the impact of the new NHS contract given that one in 10 of the new contracts were rejected by dentists and around one in four are in dispute".