Children are facing ten-month waits to receive urgently-needed dental operations at Bradford Royal Infirmary.

Changes in Government policy to stop dentists giving general anaesthetics in their surgeries have caused the hospital's waiting list to overflow with youngsters waiting for surgery on painful dental problems.

The family of Louis Doyle, aged six, has been told by staff at Horton Park Medical Centre, Bradford, that he will have to endure months of agony while waiting to have an infected tooth removed.

Today his mum Rebecca Haley, 28, of Buttershaw Drive, Buttershaw, Bradford, said she is being forced to seek treatment for her son outside the district and demanded changes to the system.

She said: "I think it's absolutely dreadful for a young child to have to wait this long for an operation. I can't believe there's a ten month waiting list.

"Louis has been in an awful lot of pain since his toothache started. We took him to his dentist, but he said because he wasn't allowed to give children anaesthetics anymore he had to refer him to the hospital for the extraction.

"He's got a hole in one of his back molars and no matter what we do it keeps becoming infected. He's been getting abscesses and it's a lot to put up with for a little lad. He just needs it taking out.

"How can he wait ten months? He's been crying in agony in the middle of the night and they've sent him home from school once because he was in so much pain.

"I think we've been treated disgracefully. Our dentist has been wonderful trying to get Louis in somewhere but the waiting list in Bradford is just too long."

Bradford South MP Gerry Sutcliffe, who is looking into the situation on the family's behalf, said: "I think it's totally unacceptable that he's had to wait that long.

"I can't understand why it's taken so long to get him treatment because they don't see it as an immediate emergency situation. There is obviously a need to get more support for people in this situation. I've had similar dental trouble recently so I know how infuriating it is."

A spokesman for Bradford South and West Primary Care Trust, which commissions dental services for people in the Buttershaw area, said waiting lists had swelled because of the new regulations preventing general anaesthesia being carried out in dental practices which come into force on December 31.

"Our priority for our patients is to ensure safety and quality of practise. We are working with providers to ensure that this happens and that waiting lists are reduced."

Bradford's children suffer from some of the worst tooth decay in the country. On average each under five-year-old in the district has 2.6 teeth which are either decayed, missing or filled.

A British Dental Association spokesman said the Bradford waiting lists highlighted a lack of dental surgery and anaesthetic services across the UK.

"We are concerned at the inadequate number of dentists and dental nurses being trained in sedation and wish to see the number of training courses increased so that sedation for patients is more widely available.

"We have called on the Government for additional funding for alternative methods of anxiety control for nervous patients such as sedation and increased training for dentists to provide this.

"The BDA welcomed the ruling to discontinue provision of general anaesthesia in general dental practices. However, the Association has also been pushing for the Department of Health to improve hospital provision of general anaesthesia in order to increase access to much-needed services."