Health chiefs in Gloucestershire have unveiled proposals to roll out mobile dental clinics across the county in a bid to boost access to NHS dental care .
The state-of-the-art clinics are part of a £12 million plan by the Gloucestershire Primary Care Trust to improve access to NHS dentists in 2009/10.
The mobile dental centres will be sent into deprived and rural areas where children suffer the most.
According to Office of National Statistics, children living in areas of deprivation in Gloucestershire have higher levels of dental disease than the national average.
The county has been boosted by the opening of three new dental clinics last month in Tewkesbury, Lydney and Cirencester, while existing practices in Gloucester, Stroud, the Forest of Dean, Cheltenham and across the Cotswolds have agreed deals to take on more NHS work .
But despite the efforts of the PCT, some areas of the county remain below national standards with many people unable to access NHS care .
Health officials in the county have questioned the speed of improvements in provision and information available to the public.
Speaking to Gloucestershire's Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Councillor Andrew Gravells said: "If you have an NHS dentist already you're lucky, because finding an NHS dentist who is taking on new patients in some parts of Gloucestershire is virtually impossible."
"The information given out on the Dental Information Helpline and on the internet is out of date and inaccurate."
He added: "We just need NHS dentists which people can access easily and quickly and if they're going to be located in mobile units so be it.
"Let's get the dentists and the mobile units into the areas where people are crying out for them because the current service isn't delivering."
Hazel Braund, director of strategy development and corporate services at Gloucestershire PCT, commented: "We still have significant resources to invest in dentistry ."
"We know mobile dental units are increasingly sophisticated. They will help us in an interim period to increase capacity in small communities and areas of deprivation."
