SOME dentists in the Staffordshire Moorlands and Newcastle are falling way behind the number of NHS patients they have been contracted to treat.

Figures just released show four of the area's 28 practices are significantly adrift of how much state treatment they should have dispensed by the year's mid-point. But because of over-performance by other surgeries, the primary care trust is overall on target for bringing care to the number of patients it has covered.

Furthest adrift by the halfway stage of 2008-9 are Quayle's of Newcastle which had completed only 32.2 per cent of its yearly NHS contract to dispense 19,000 treatments, Atkinson's of Cheddleton (24.4 per cent of its 1,904 treatments), Cuthill's of Biddulph (22.7 per cent of 8,876 treatments) and Waterer's of Leek (13.7 per cent of 972 treatments).