Dental services in Bradford are operating on a knife edge due to a shortage of dentists in the district, health chiefs have been warned.

Dentists, struggling to cope with too many patients, are deserting their practices because of ill health and not enough new dentists are being trained to replace them.

Of the dentists that are left many are disillusioned with the NHS and turning to private work to earn a living.

Despite only half the population of the district being registered with a dentist, many patients - particularly those living in Airedale and the north Bradford area - face a long journey to find a dentist who is willing to treat them on the NHS.

Now dentists are calling on primary care trusts to offer more support and stem the tide of professionals leaving the business before the situation reaches crisis point.

Members of Bradford's Local Dental Committee want to see two new jobs set up - a practice management advisor to slash the amount of time dentists spend on administration and a practice nurse advisor to help with staff training.

It is felt this will ease the situation for the district's 20 single-handed practitioners and the 22 double-handed practices and give them more time to treat more patients.

Dental practice advisor David Laxton, who carries out pastoral visits to dentists across the district, said: "We are losing experienced dentists because they cannot hack it any more."

He said one Bradford dentist, who had been coping with 80 NHS patients a day, had been signed off with clinical depression, two others had recently retired because of depression and another had simply walked away from his practice because of stress.

Mr Laxton said primary care trusts, which took over responsibility for dental services in October, had to act before the problems of patient access became any worse.

"It they don't there will be trouble ahead," he said. "There is potential for change there. There is a good workforce. They just need some support or they will all drift into the private sector and they will not come back to do NHS work."

Dentist Steve Woolley, of West End Apex Dental Centre, Little Horton Lane, Bradford, warned a crisis was looming.

"If you look at the number of dentists withdrawing from the NHS and look at the numbers coming in replace them, there is a shortfall," he said. "Measures to retain dentists need to be put in place now."

Mr Woolley said the problem was the way NHS work was remunerated. It was still the same as when the NHS was set up.

"It is basically piece work rate, which can be very wearing," he said.

John Hearnshaw, head of primary care contractor services, with responsibility for developing dental services across the district's four primary care trusts, said setting up the two new posts was a viable option but it would be up to each PCT.

"In general we are still managing to offer NHS treatment to any patient that needs it but people living in Airedale and north Bradford will need to travel into the city for it."