Dental Super-Centre To Boost NHS Dentistry In Burnley

Mon, 21 Dec 2009

Thousands of NHS dental patients from Burnley will benefit from the opening of a new dental super-centre.

The new facility will have facilities to cater for up to 10,000 NHS patients and has been hailed by local officials as a major step forward in tacking Burnley’s poor standards of oral health, considered to be among the lowest in the country.

As well as seeing to more patients, it is hoped the state-of-the-art centre will help East Lancashire to retain trained dentists who are currently lost to larger city practices.

The project, which will be one of the largest of its kind in the region with up to 10 surgeries, could be completed by next autumn.

NHS East Lancashire said places will be available to people from across the region, but will be mainly aimed at local residents in the Burnley area.

Peter Sellars, head of primary care at NHS East Lancashire, said: "Over the past few years, we have worked hard to replace lost capacity and have achieved our aim in that regard. Now we are building extra capacity for the future."

"Our ambition is to improve NHS provision across all our five boroughs, though the need in Burnley is one of the highest.

"This state-of-the-art facility will help us tackle the issue and the training centre element will help us to grow our own dentists for the future."

According to the PCT, around 10,494 people across East Lancashire are waiting to be allocated a dentist and it is estimated that thousands more could be on waiting lists by 2011.

Just 20 of the 52 dental practices in the region are currently accepting new NHS patients.
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