As one of South East Cornwall's few remaining dentists accepting NHS patients was forced to close his list this week, it was revealed that the nearest practice offering an alternative service is in North Devon - or the Isles of Scilly! Adam Gitlin of the family-run Maple Croft Dental Practice in Looe says he will have to start turning existing clients away. Although it is primarily a private practice he currently treats 600 children free on the NHS and, since November, has also been looking after nearly 400 patients on benefits who are exempt from current NHS charges. He took over the practice three years ago and has built up a reputation which has attracted patients from far and wide. But this week Adam reluctantly announced that, as a result of the new NHS funding guidelines which come into effect on April 1, he will no longer be paid to see them all. His NHS funding has effectively been capped at last year's level. Like many dentists, Adam cannot afford to offer NHS dentistry to everyone but says he strongly believes that all children should have access to free dentistry – and since November he has been prepared to extend that service to adults on benefits. He is now having to abandon his principles as a result of the new Government funding system which, he says, makes it impossible to continue. He says the new deal being offered by the Primary Care Trust, based on the funding it will receive from the Government, means that if he continues to see his current patients, without taking on any new ones, he will end up having to pay for the treatment and materials himself. Under the new system patients will be entitled to just one treatment on the NHS – a filling for example – even if they actually require a course of treatment. Funding 'I've got the time and the inclination but it comes down to the fact that I simply do not have the funding to continue as I have in the past,' he said. 'I should be telling about 150 children taken on recently that I can no longer see them, but I won't. I will try to keep them on.' Adam is urging his patients, and anyone concerned over the shrinking NHS dentistry provision, to lobby their MPs. He says he accepts the Primary Care Trust's argument that while it would like to offer additional funding, it cannot. 'It should be a clinical judgment as to whether a patients requires treatment but it is now a purely financial one,' he said. A search on the NHS website (http://www.nhs.uk">www.nhs.uk) for the nearest dentistry practice to Looe accepting NHS patients this week revealed that, while one in Liskeard will accept charge paying adults and children up to the age of 18 for NHS treatment, it will not accept Charge Exempt clients. The next nearest dentist accepting NHS registrations accessible to people from the Looe area is at Northam near Bideford – 48.2 miles (77.6 kms) away, followed by one in Bridgwater, Somerset or another on St Marys in the Isles of Scilly!