Chief dental officer Barry Cockcroft officially opened a new dental practice in Burnley – which was once a nightclub.
Dr Cockcroft welcomed guests at the Quest Dental Care on Red Lion Street, Burnley, who enjoyed a tour of this new NHS-enhanced dental training practice which has been developed as the result of a close collaboration between NHS East Lancashire and Quest Dental Care LLP.
This development is part of NHS East Lancashire’s commitment to ensure people in the area are able to access high quality dental care.
The grade two listed building is a former Baptist church and nightclub and now contains 12 dental suites equipped with modern facilities and technology to provide a full range of NHS dentistry.
The practice will also be providing training opportunities for dentists, dental therapists and dental nurses in partnership with the East Lancashire Dental Education Centre in Accrington, UCLAN and Liverpool University.
In his speech, Barry Cockcroft joked that this was the first time he’d been asked to open a nightclub – but that all the participants should be justifiably proud of what had been achieved.
The practice has been open to patients since the beginning of October and has proved to be extremely popular.
Pauline Hargreaves, Ian Redfearn and Nicholas Taylor, the partners of Quest Dental Care, said: ‘We are delighted to be working in this state of the art facility provided by the PCT. This is an exciting and innovative project and we have a fantastic team in place who are providing a first-class NHS dental service as well as training for all members of the dental team.
‘We’ve been amazed at the numbers of patients wanting to access our services and this confirms the unmet need in the local population. Early signs are that people are very grateful for the care we’re able to offer and we are confident we can have a real impact on the dental health of Burnley.’
For further information, visit www.questdentalcare.co.uk.
