A LANDFORD charity has reacted to comments on homeless people from one of the most senior dentists in the country.

It comes after Mick Armstrong, the leader of the British Dental Association, accused homeless people of being “no-hopers”, and suggested it was sometimes acceptable to deny them treatment.

In leaked emails, Mr Armstrong said many practitioners were wary of taking on homeless patients: “These are difficult patients who rarely complete a course of treatment and attend irregularly if at all,” he wrote to a colleague. “If we took in all the no-hopers who ring us ... I suspect we’d miss our targets by a country mile.”

In response, a spokesman for dental charity Dentaid said: “This incident needs to be used as an opportunity to highlight the issues that many homeless and vulnerable people face when they try to access dental care.

“More must be done to help engage this patient group and provide them with safe, sustainable dental treatment and oral health education. There are many barriers that homeless people have to overcome in many aspects of their lives and this includes dentistry. We know that many homeless people aren’t registered with a dentist or don’t attend regularly and as a result they live with persistent dental pain. No-one should be denied treatment.”

Throughout this year, Dentaid have provided free care for homeless and vulnerable people in Salisbury, including at Alabare Place.