About 13,000 people in the region are unable to get NHS treatment

Twenty new recruits began work in January, tasked with treating some of the 36,000 NHS patients in the region.

Minister of State, Rosie Winterton, will visit some of the new dentists at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital's Dental Centre on Wednesday.

There are currently about 16,000 who are unable to get NHS treatment.

The experienced Polish dentists have been trained for working in this country and the training includes health service procedures and English.

The Department of Health has promised to recruit an extra 1,000 dentists by October 2005 after the admission last year, that around half of the UK population is not registered with a dental surgery because of a shortage of NHS dentists.