MORE than 2000 people, including pensioners and children, queued in the wind and rain from 5am yesterday to try to sign up as private patients as another dentist quit the NHS.

Some elderly patients of the Garioch Dental Practice in Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, had to seek shelter by sitting in shop doorways as the stress of waiting in the freezing cold took its toll.

Most only learned by letter on Saturday morning that the practice was going private because of underfunding by the government.

Richard Lochhead, the SNP North East MSP, spoke to many in the queue which snaked through the town centre. He accused the practice of treating the patients shamefully and said it was time ministers realised the gravity of the crisis in the area.

It was the latest in a series of similar switches to private practice which have caused alarm in Scottish communities.

All the dentists have blamed government underfunding as the reason for their decision.

Gilbert Ritchie, one of the Garioch practice dentists, said the switch to private practice had been inevitable.

"There has been a steady erosion of NHS funding over the years allied, especially in the north east of Scotland, to a real shortage of dentists and we need to attract personnel to work here, " he said.

"Dentists now have a choice and the majority want to work in private practice.

"Most dentists want to provide a quality service to their patients and we can't do that now under the health service and we badly need more dentists in Scotland."

Married father-of-two Ian Lees, 32, a taxi driver, started queuing with his 18-month-old son, Ethan, just after 7am.

"It's crazy, " he said. "I have been with this practice for 12 years and I am disgusted. It's really terrible that you have to come here and queue to get registered.

"I don't know if it's the dentists being greedy or the NHS not having enough money - maybe a bit of both."

Shona Robison, SNP health spokeswoman, said a Scottish Executive plan to make remaining in the NHS a more attractive option should have stopped this sort of incident happening.

"It's particularly bad in Grampian, but it's a problem in many other parts of Scotland too. I will be looking at opportunities to raise this and ask where it leaves their plan, " she said.

An executive spokesman said they had recently announced ambitious and wide-ranging measures coupled with record funding to overhaul NHS dentistry in Scotland.

"No other government in history has invested so much in Scottish dentistry - pounds-150m over three years.

"This will build up over the next three years from the current base of pounds-200m to pounds-245m in year one, pounds-300m in year two and in year three, a massive pounds-350m.

"The bulk of this extra funding, pounds-120m, will be going directly, through various initiatives, to primary care dental services.

"Also, NHS boards now have the authority to appoint salaried dentists as and when they are needed and we are seeing a steady increase in the number of these posts being created and filled across the country.

"Our aim is to restore the balance, so that patients who want NHS care can receive it, and from dentists who are supported by and committed to the NHS."