A dentist has accused the government of insulting his profession by offering an extra £50 for registering new NHS patients.

Kent-based Dr Shushil Dattani said the proposed payout would not "touch the sides” given how “underfunded” NHS surgeries are.

Under new government proposals, dentists who set up practice in England with poor access to NHS care will be offered a £20,000 bonus.

Whitehall has also announced higher payments for dentists who take on new patients and teeth-cleaning in schools as part of plans to improve dental care.

But Dr Dattani, who works at Kent Smile Studio, said more needs to be done.

“They’ve announced £20,000 over the next three years to have patients accepted at dental practices - that equates to about £4.50 an hour,” he says.

“The cost of running a dental surgery, one room is £150 to £200 an hour.

”That’s the tip of the iceberg as to how underfunded we are.

“It’s an insult. It’s almost as if they don’t want to care but it’s a political move because the elections are coming.

“By saying £20,000 it makes them seem good, it makes them sound electable. But, in essence, it’s nothing.”

Smile accepts NHS and private patients in Maidstone, while its Chatham. practice is exclusively private.

Dr Dattani stressed his practice has not taken on an NHS patient in six years because it is fixed on meeting government-set targets.

‘It’s not going to touch the sides’

He says a contract introduced by the NHS in 2006 set out targets for practices but, if dentists work to meet their quotas, they do not have capacity for new patients.

“We just don’t have the capacity to see new patients because we only furnish our existing lists,” he explained.

So patients have got nowhere to go because of the under-funding at the moment.”

The lack of funding means dentists are being forced to physically close their doors to new patients leading to the huge queues seen in Bristol earlier this week when a practice did offer to take on new patients.

Dr Dattani says Kent has seen long queues witnessed elsewhere in the country.

“It did happen at Kent Smile Studio in 2012,” he said.

“We opened our list up because we grew a new dentist and reallocated our funding, and we had queues like Bristol had.

“If a dentist or practice does open its doors tomorrow, it would be the same in Kent.”

The government’s plans to provide a cash incentive for dentists taking on new patients are expected to boost dental appointments across the country by 2.5 million next year.

It will also see patients able to view which local dentists are accepting new NHS patients at the touch of a button.

On Monday and Tuesday, hundreds of people were seen queuing in Bristol after an dentist opened up its books for NHS patients.

Under the new proposals, dentists will be paid more for their NHS work under the NHS Dental Recovery Plan.

Officials also hope to incentivise 240 dentists to work in communities where there is less access with one-off so-called “golden hello” payments of £20,000 for working in “under-served” areas for up to three years.

Under the plans, set out by NHS England and the Department for Health and Social Care, people will be able to use the NHS app to see which practices in their local area are accepting new patients.

Access to NHS dentistry has been one of the main concerns highlighted to Healthwatch England.

Healthwatch said that as a result patients have lived with ongoing pain and in extreme cases, patients have resorted to “DIY dentistry” such as pulling out their own teeth.