There is a shortage of dentists in Pembrokeshire

The county's health board is to become the first in Wales to employ its own dentist from January.

The new dentist will provide emergency treatment for people who are not registered with a practice.

Like many other rural areas, very few NHS dentists are taking on new patients in the county and most private pratices are also full.

The new dentist will work across the county, but people will not be able to register with him or her.

The local health board said it was just one way it was trying to tackle the issue.

Ian Jones, a dental surgeon in Milford Haven, said he was "delighted" with the announcement.

The assembly and ourselves and the dental profession are trying hard to recruit dentists. Bernardine Rees, Pembrokeshire Local Health Board

"Pembrokeshire has something like 2.9 dentists per 10,000 population - that compares with over four per 10,000 in Cardiff," he said.

"We are chronically short of dentists."

He said the new role was a step in the right direction.

"It is perhaps a sticking plaster over a large defect, but it is certainly to be welcomed," he said.

"It is nice to see we are achieving something, but we have to do a lot more to attract dentists in the long term to provide comprehensive services in west Wales."

The post has been made possible with the help of funding from the Welsh Assembly Government.

Bernardine Rees, Chief Executive of Pembrokeshire local health board, said it was taking the shortage of dental services very seriously.

"We will use our salaried dentist to actually deal with the emergency health needs of the unregistered population, but we won't be registering patients," she said.

"The assembly and ourselves and the dental profession are trying hard to recruit dentists.

"It is a UK-wide problem, not only a Welsh or a Pembrokeshire problem."

Earlier this year, Welsh assembly Health Minister Jane Hutt announced that Pembrokeshire would be one of six counties sharing �510,000 to tackle the shortage.

It followed a �5.3m injection in May, and a rise in the number of dental training places in Wales.

Last July, hundreds of people from across mid and west Wales were turned away after spending hours queuing to get on the books of an NHS dentist in Carmarthen.