STUDENT dentists will spend a crucial part of their training in North Staffordshire for the first time – and help battle high tooth decay rates in the area.

Sixteen final-year Manchester University students will work at local dentists' surgeries for one day a week as part of a scheme to start in the next few months.

Health academics hope the move will eventually lead to the opening of a fully-fledged dental school to complement the successful doctor, nurse and midwifery training schools set up at Keele University in recent years.

They say that would produce a steady stream of fresh dentists to work in the Potteries and tackle North Staffordshire people's tooth decay, which is among the worst in the West Midlands.

Professor Andy Garner, dean of Keele's health faculty, pictured below, said: "While the success of our existing schools continues to grow, my next goal is to see a dental school opening here in an area where NHS dental access is diabolical, but that is still some years off."

Officials are also working to create vocational training places at local surgeries for graduates from other schools to fill. They hope the new dentists will then stay locally and end a shortage in the profession which is preventing half the North Staffordshire population having access to NHS treatment.

Funding for the student scheme has come from North Staffordshire Primary Care Trust (PCT), with the surgeries involved offered by the Stoke-on-Trent PCT.

Mr Garner said: "We are also trying to persuade the strategic health authority to free some vocational training slots at dentists locally in the hope that those filling them will stay and practice in North Staffordshire when their postgraduate training ends.

"We believe we have a compelling argument for this to happen and help create more NHS dentistry in this area."

Last week, The Sentinel revealed there was a poor uptake for thousands of extra places at Stoke-on-Trent practices recently purchased by the PCT.

But Mr Garner said that was "an educational issue", as there was still a need for more NHS treatment in the city.

The Keele medical school is now ranked 14th out of Britain's 30 doctor training establishments, despite being less than a decade old. Before breaking free three years ago, it had been an offshoot of the Manchester school, which is currently in 29th place.

Councillor John Davis, who sits on Stoke-on-Trent City Council's health scrutiny committee, said: "Having students here won't solve the shortage of NHS dentists overnight, but it is certainly a step in the right direction and most welcome.

"When my own dentist in Bentilee shut about four years ago, I and hundreds more were left high and dry. I searched all over for another one until I got fixed up with one in Cobridge.

"I am lucky to have a car to get there, but those without would have to catch two buses so it is hardly ideal."