A private company has started a new oral surgery service for the NHS in Bradford in a bid to cut waiting times for people needing treatment for serious dental problems.

Eccleshill NHS Treatment Centre is run by Care UK on behalf of the NHS and offers advanced X-ray services as well as complex or multiple extractions and surgery on impacted teeth.

Christine Wardman, hospital director at the centre in Newlands Way, said: “Last year we began to realise that there was a real shortage of oral surgery services for NHS patients living in the Leeds and Bradford area.

“Waiting times were getting longer and many nervous patients were faced with having difficult tooth extractions in their dentist’s chair or simply trying to live with the pain until they could get a hospital appointment.”

The team devised a service that could offer complex extractions, including the surgical removal of impacted teeth.

The centre can offer treatment under general anaesthetic and sedation, depending on individual requirements.

The service has three theatres and a comprehensive range of diagnostic equipment and services, including MRI, CT, ultrasound, X-ray and a service which carries out a panoramic dental X-ray of the upper and lower jaws in 2D.

Mrs Wardman said: “I’m now evaluating when we can make the services of the special X-ray machine available to local NHS dentists who may not have the resources to invest in such a hi-tech piece of kit, but who would like the in-depth picture it paints of a patient’s teeth and jaw.”

The service has helped Bradford resident Linda Knight, who was in severe pain caused by an impacted wisdom tooth and an abscess.

Her dentist recommended an operation to remove the tooth in hospital because of the delicacy of her jaw, but was told there would be an eight or nine-week wait.

Her dentist suggested Eccleshill NHS Treatment Centre and within a fortnight she was having the operation.

Linda said: “The infection was bad and very painful. It took two courses of antibiotics to get rid of it and I didn’t know where to put myself.

“When I found out that the waiting list for the operation was eight to nine months long at our usual hospital, I could have cried – there was no way I could hold out that long.”