A STREAM of patients are expected to sign up with one of Preston's newest dentists registering NHS patients as he returns to his roots.

Two thousand people are being offered the chance to get on the books of dentist Craig Farrell, 24, who is currently finishing his studies in Leeds, when he takes up his position as an associate dentist with private dentist Austin Hughes in September, at the practice in Camden Place, off Winckley Square.

Staff there have already set up an extra telephone line to deal with the number of phone calls expected from patients wanting to register.

The extra practice was only made possible after Mr Hughes secured more than £20,000 from the local health authority to take on the additional patients. The new NHS dentist will be one of only a handful in Preston, with many of those on the outskirts of the city boundary. Mr Farrell, who was a former patient of Mr Hughes, said: "I'm not foreseeing any problems.

"This is a great opportunity and I'm looking forward to it but at the same time find it a little bit daunting. I didn't want to go anywhere where there would be no patients to treat."

He added: "There will be plenty of work to do here. In the first six months I've got to try and see 2,000 patients and most of them are going to need quite a lot of initial treatment.

"There are a lot of people missing out on NHS treatment and it's a shame we can't treat them all."

Mr Hughes said that his primary motive was that he wanted to be a two-man practice.

"I have worked single-handedly for the last seven years and it is tough," he said.

To register with Mr Farrell call 556065.