at the end of last month.

"If families can't be seen at the same practice, if people are punished then to join a waiting list because they have looked after their mouth, then where are they going to go? Because we know hospital waiting lists don't work," he said.The proposals are now part of a

, open until 19 June, and in Cardiff people gave a mixed response to the plans when asked by BBC Wales.Robyn Weldon, 21, said: "I've been going to my dentist since I was probably six so I guess that would be a bit sad if I can't go to him."I would say too that things haven't been going very well for the NHS so maybe this could be a good start to kind of make things easier for them and for us."

Paul McCarthy, 77, said he was unaware of the changes."I wouldn't be very happy about it either," he said.

"I've been coming here for over 30 years and I'm used to coming here so I wouldn't like that at all."

Justin Rees, 52, from Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, thought the new portal idea could be positive.Matthew's father, an insurance agent from the Home Counties, was a keen amateur cyclist who spent his life following the local racing scene.

He lived alone in retirement and over the last decade his health had been deteriorating.Matthew thought long and hard about telling him the truth about his family history but, in the end, decided against it.

"I just felt my dad doesn't need this," he says. "He had lived 78 years in a type of ignorance, so it didn't feel right to share it with him."Matthew's father died last year without ever knowing he'd been celebrating his birthday a day early for the past eight decades.