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Free urgent dental clinic to open in Plymouth

Anna Varle
BBC South West health correspondent
BBC The front of the shop with a blue front with the Peninsula Dental and University of Plymouth signsBBC
A mock up picture of what the city centre practice will look like

A clinic is set to open in Plymouth where dental students will treat patients in urgent need of care.

Final-year students from the University of Plymouth's Peninsula Dental School will work alongside specialists to provide care to patients who do not have an NHS dentist.

Bosses said there would be on the day appointments for people who experienced pain, infection and trauma.

Prof Robert Witton, chief executive of Peninsula Dental Social Enterprise and professor of community dentistry at the university, said there were "large numbers of people waiting to access dental care in Plymouth and the surrounding area" and the clinic "will go some way to addressing some of that need".

A building with two floors with a mural of the Plymouth skyline on the wall
The clinic is due to open for appointments by December

Peninsula Dental Social Enterprise - a subsidiary of the University of Plymouth - has taken a 20-year lease on Plymouth City Council's former First Stop Shop in New George Street.

Subject to planning permission being granted, bosses said it would be revamped into a £5m state-of-the-art practice.

Prof Ewen McColl, head of the Peninsula Dental School at the university, said: "It will be like a practice on the High Street."

Dental students dressed in blue tunics practicing in a large room on phantom heads
Second-year students at Peninsula Dental School in Plymouth

He said: "The practice will allow our students to work in a more realistic High Street environment, preparing them for the workplace.

"It will be more like a typical dental practice, with individual surgeries when compared to our larger dental education facilities, so it will improve education of our students, while serving our community.

"This will allow the students to provide urgent care which is increasingly becoming more and more a part of dental therapy."

Woman with a model head and dental equipment. She is wearing a blue T-shirt and she has goggle and black hair. Lots of medical equipment is behind her
Phoebe Kinsella, second-year dental student, said it was nerve-wracking and exciting

Phoebe Kinsella, who is a second-year student, said: "As much as it is nerve-wracking, it's also so exciting. It's what we got into this profession for."

Rohan Patel, who is also a second-year student at the university, said: "Since year one, we are in clinics.

"Patients are in safe hands.

"If we weren't able to do it, the supervisors would not let us."

The clinic is due to open for appointments by December.

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