EAST Lancashire’s unique new dental school – one of the country’s first to be unveiled in nearly 100 years – has been opened officially by the country’s top dentist.
The Department of Health’s Chief Dental Officer, Barry Cockcroft, toured the new Oak House Dental Centre, adjacent to the Accrington Pals Health Centre in Paradise Street, Accrington, after officiating at the opening ceremony.
Before unveiling the official plaque, he met dental students who are training at the centre, as well as officials from NHS East Lancashire, the community health provider which has been instrumental in getting the project off the ground.
The aim is to train ‘home-grown’ dentists for the future, with the idea that where students train they often end up staying in the area as practitioners.
The £2.2 million centre is unique in that it is a completely new ‘hub and spoke’ concept, launched between NHS East Lancashire and several leading North West education institutions.
It also has four purpose-built, state-of-the-art NHS dental surgeries which are up and running in place of the old surgeries at Accrington Victoria Hospital site, and which act as a new base for the local NHS out-of-hours emergency dental service.
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