A Watchdog is to complain to Health Secretary John Reid about Oxfordshire's inadequate NHS dental care after the problem was highlighted by the Oxford Mail.

Members of the county council's health overview and scrutiny committee have agreed to join the campaign to fight for better access to dentists after it was revealed that only 11 out of 113 practices in the area offered subsidised treatment.

Although Oxfordshire dental consultant David Thomas is supporting their plans to write to Dr Reid, he warned that despite extra Government funding from April, a shortage of dentists would persist.

Linda Watson, Oxfordshire County Council's scrutiny review officer, said: "I have been asked to set out the major problems and write a letter to the Secretary of State for Health, explaining that there's a problem with dentistry in Oxfordshire.

"Even though there are community dental services in Oxfordshire, the difficulty is staffing the service. They are still short of two dentists."

Mr Thomas said the Government was likely to say that it had already announced an extra £529,000 funding for dentists in Oxfordshire - even though the money was unlikely to help improve recruitment.

He said: "I support anything the scrutiny committee can say, but what the Government will say is that we have money to spend from April 1, which will hopefully improve services.

"Recruitment is a major problem everywhere at the moment. We just don't have enough dentists."

The HOSC, which has taken over duties from the defunct Oxfordshire Community Health Council, agreed to take action after being made aware of the issue by county councillor Brian Hodgson.

Mr Hodgson was "appalled" by the figures published in the Oxford Mail and in November won unanimous support from council members when he proposed they conducted an urgent study into the affordability of dentists in the area.

He said: "I think a scrutiny committee review would take longer than necessary, so to send comments to the Secretary of State for Health is probably the best option."