TWENTY thousand more people will have access to an NHS dentist in Stoke-on-Trent under plans to build two new surgeries and expand a third.

Eight new dentists are set to work from the two 9,000-patient surgeries which should open by May next year.

They will be in Bentilee and the Stoke and Trent Vale area because the communities have the greatest need for dental services.

Families in Bentilee found out more about their planned surgery at a meeting last night. NHS Stoke-on-Trent is holding a similar consultation in Hartshill on Tuesday.

News of the two surgeries comes as Shelton Dental Centre, in Stoke Road, Shelton, is recruiting up to 2,000 more NHS patients because of an expansion.

Latest figures show only 57 per cent of Stoke-on-Trent's 250,000 population had been to a dentist in the city within the two years to March this year.

But as well as building new surgeries, NHS Stoke-on-Trent, which will tender for the £1.3 million contracts, then needs to make sure people actually use their local practices.

North Staffordshire dental public health consultant Kate Taylor-Weetman said: "Our target is to ensure everyone in the city gets access to NHS dentistry by March 2011.

"We have identified the areas of the city where people have the least access to a dentist.

"We aim to bring the highest quality services to places with the highest need."

Dental leaders today hoped the investment would deal with health inequalities in the city.

Clare Banks, secretary of the 120-stong North Staffordshire Local Dental Committee (LDC), said: "National bodies will want to take on this work but we hope existing local dentists are also given a break."

Despite the improvements, the LDC warned some patients with toothache are still visiting their GP or even turning up at A&E because they are in so much pain.

Resident Anthony Finch, pictured, aged 42, of Aylesbury Road, Bentilee, said: "I have been trying to find an NHS dentist for ages now, but there don't seem to be any who taking on new patients.

"I have three children, and at the moment one has to travel to Newcastle for treatment, one goes to the University Hospital and the other goes to a surgery in Hanley."

Read more stories about local dentists at www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/dentists

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