Many people are missing out on free dental treatment

The community dental service has until now been mostly for children and adults with special needs.

The service in Egremont will now join forces with two general dental practices and the dental access centre to help address the problem.

Figures show just 44% of adults and 60% of children were registered with an NHS dentist last year.

Under the pilot scheme, the staff of the two practices will work directly for the health service, meaning there will be better access for unregistered patients.

Queue to register

Eric Rooney, consultant in dental public health for North Cumbria, said: "This is a new scheme supported by the Department of Health to bring together a couple of general dental practices and the community dental service into an integrated network of providers which we hope, in time, will help address the problems.

"There are already existing sites and the addition of the two practices means we can improve the geographic spread of overall service."

The problem of a lack of dental services is echoed across the country with more than 1,200 people recently signing a petition calling for extra NHS dental treatment to be made available in Bowness and Windermere.

In Scarborough, North Yorkshire, hundreds of people queued for hours to register with an NHS dentist.