A Government shake-up of dentistry which led to 20,000 fewer Oxfordshire patients getting NHS treatment was branded a failure by MPs today.

The Commons Health Select Committee said the Government's goal of improving patient access to dental services had not been realised by recent reforms.

About 20,000 fewer Oxfordshire patients saw an NHS dentist in the past two years, compared with the period before the Government's new contract for dentists began in April 2006.

Data published by the Information Centre for Health and Social Care revealed a reduction in dental appointments from 299,592 patients in the two years to April 2006, to 278,710 in the two years to December 2007.

Private practice dentist Amit Mohindra, 29, of Diamond House Dental Practice, in Summertown, Oxford, said: "Before January 2006, I worked for one of the pilot NHS centres in Liverpool but the new contract that was drawn up was not tried and tested and seemed designed to increase the number of extractions and reduce complex treatment.

"In this practice, we try our utmost to save a tooth where practical and that treatment should last a long time. The NHS is perhaps more target-driven."

The Department of Health said the reforms, which replaced hundreds of separate patient charges with three treatment bands, gave primary care trusts the chance to provide NHS dentists in places where it was difficult to get an appointment.

But thousands of dentists were unhappy with the switch from payment-per-item to an annual income for a pre-determined amount of treatment and aband- oned the NHS to go private.

The committee made a series of recommendations, including rewarding dentists who improved the oral health of their patients, and allocating funding on the basis of a local needs assessment.

Shadow Health Minister Mike Penning called for the contract to be scrapped.

He said: "The Government has consistently refused to acknowledge the shambolic current state of NHS dentistry."

The Department of Health said the Government would carefully consider the committee's recommendations before publishing a formal response to its report.

Nicky Wadely, dentist service development manager at Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust, said: "In October last year, Oxfordshire PCT agreed to invest an additional £1m by commissioning extra access to NHS dental care from local dentists. Since the int- roduction of the new dental contract, we have been able to support new practices in Banbury, Bicester and Wallingford and invest almost £1m in funding for established practices.

"Oxfordshire PCT currently contracts for dental services with 115 providers. Within those 115 providers, there will be a number of dentists.

"Since the initial introduction of the contract there have been a number of retirements of older dentists.

"In discussion with the PCT, the practice has either been sold to a new provider who has also taken a new NHS contract, or patients have been helped to find another NHS dentist."

Before the new contract was introduced, there were 384 NHS dentists registered in the county. The total fell by 94 in six months to 290 by the end of September.