Dental nurses in Tyneside could be recruited by hospitals in the region to help ease the pressure on staff if the swine flu pandemic becomes worse.
Although dental nurses are not employed directly by the NHS, the North Tyneside Primary Care Trust has revealed that discussions would be held with dental practices if health services were in need of extra support.
Dr Meng Khaw, director of public health for the PCT, explained: "Dental Nurses are not qualified to treat medical conditions, and the sorts of roles that dental nurses would be asked to do might be taking phone calls, triaging patents, and providing information and signposting patients to other services."
"We're looking towards autumn time when we're expecting to hit the peak weeks of this pandemic ."
But he added that "there's no indication at the moment that we'll get to a stage where we have to call on the whole health economy to help in our response."
Martin Fulford, spokesman for the British Dental Association, commented: "I think with the appropriate training it's time for everyone to pull together."
"We need to look at the NHS in its entirety and prioritise our working practices . Nurses are trained healthcare professionals and would expect to help out in such an emergency."
