An extra £3.1 million is to be pumped in to increase NHS dentistry in Wiltshire.

The county has a shortfall of NHS dentists and the additional funding will increase provision from the existing 43 per cent of the 457,490 population with access to an NHS dentist to 52 per cent.

The extra money has come from the South West Strategic Health Authority and will be used from April for the coming year.

The extra provision will be towns including Melksham, Trowbridge, Warminster, Westbury and Chippenham.

NHS Wiltshire, which commissions dental services, is in negotiations with existing dentists in Melksham and Trowbridge to take on the extra NHS work while it wants to attract new dentists to open practices in Warminster, Westbury and Chippenham.

The lowest coverage of NHS dentistry in West Wiltshire is in Westbury and under the increase this will rise from seven per cent of the population to 36 per cent.

In Warminster coverage will increase from 28 per cent to 41 per cent, in Melksham it will rise from 87 per cent to 99 per cent while in Trowbridge it will go from 66 per cent to 69 per cent and in Chippenham it will increase from 22 per cent to 47 per cent.

The provision of NHS dentistry changed in April 2006 when a new dental contract was introduced nationally.

Dentists are now paid an agreed monthly income for a set number of treatments over a year. Under the previous system dentists were paid for each separate treatment they gave.

When NHS Wiltshire (then called Wiltshire Primary Care Trust) was set up in October 2006 the percentage of the population with access to an NHS dentist was 32 per cent.

NHS Wiltshire invested an extra £1.4 million to increase NHS dentistry in 2008/9.

The Government’s target is for 70 per cent of the population to have access to an NHS dentist.

NHS Wiltshire intends to reach that target in 2011.