University granted £1.5m to set up dental school
The University of Lincoln has been granted funding of £1.5m to establish the facility.
Vice chancellor Prof Neal Juster said it was "a first step towards training dentists themselves".
The funding has been approved by the Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority (GLCCA), with Mayor Andrea Jenkyns saying the award was "great news for residents".
Prof Juster said the county was "known as a dental desert" and he hoped to get to a full dental school training dentists one day.
When it opens in September 2026 the new Lincolnshire Institute of Dental and Oral Health will be part of the University's Medical School.
It will accept around 30 students in its first year and will teach a new BSc in Dental Hygiene and Therapy alongside a foundation course designed to help dental nurses and other healthcare professionals retrain and upskill.
The funding has come from the government's Shared Prosperity Fund which was handed to the GLCCA to distribute.
Meeting for the first time since last month's local elections and chaired by Mayor Dame Andrea Jenkyns, it voted unanimously to award the money.
Dame Andrea said she recommended the funding was approved and was "really pleased to get this project off the ground".
At the same meeting councillor Ingrid Sheard was voted in as deputy greater Lincolnshire mayor.
Sheard is an elected Lincolnshire County Council member for Spalding Elloe for the Reform UK party.
Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.
Long queues as dentist offers NHS places
'I was living on soup, porridge and painkillers'
Dentist closures 'heartbreaking', says councillor
First NHS dentist for five years in seaside town
'County will lose dental desert tag' - health boss
University of Lincoln
Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
'I'm utterly lost': Patients' anger over doctors strike cancellations
The resident doctors strike in England has begun after a dispute over pay between the government and the British Medical Association (BMA). Thousands of doctors are walking out over five days, with Health Secretary Wes Streeting insisting that disruption will be kept to a minimum. But several NHS patients have told the BBC they fear their conditions could become worse after delays to scheduled procedures, while some have also expressed sympathy over the concerns the doctors are raising. Peter Plant, 58, of Tamworth, who has kidney cancer, said his surgery to remove the organ on Friday was cancelled on Thursday morning. The operation has been rescheduled for 20 August, but he fears the delay could be a "death sentence". "Resident doctors do not care that delaying operations like mine are very likely a death sentence," he said. "I'm absolutely angry and frustrated. It is not just about me, it's about our whole family. "You try and gear yourself up for it and then it's utter deflation." Mr Plant said he and his family had been living in "limbo" and that he felt "utterly lost". "Wes Streeting says he has told hospitals to carry on as normal and they're clearly not," he added. Official figures have not yet been released on the impact of the strike. Some hospitals are reporting more than 80% of their non-urgent work is still being carried out. Previous walkouts have led to mass cancellations of operations, appointments and treatments: more than one million were cancelled during resident doctor strikes in March 2023 and routine care was cut by half at some hospitals. 'My three-year-old needs surgery now' Hassnain Shahid, from Bradford, said his three-year-old daughter urgently needed lung surgery but it had been indefinitely postponed - despite medical warnings about the risks of delay. "It's been an emotional rollercoaster and it's very frustrating for us," Mr Shahid said. Mr Shahid's daughter has Congenital Pulmonary Airway Malformation (CPAM), a rare lung condition. He said consultants told him surgery was urgent and that it was important it took place in the summer when there was less chance his daughter could catch a cold. "Now we've been told the surgery has been cancelled and they have no availability - not even in September," he said. "They were the ones that said she needed to have it done. "I understand why the doctors are striking, but when you take this path and you go to university you know how much you're going to earn - if you're not happy with the pay, look at an alternative career." Repeated delays to surgery Sarah, a patient from the north-west of England, said she was due to have a hysterectomy - an operation to remove her uterus - on Monday but it had been cancelled for a second time. "They don't have a rescheduled date for me at this time," she said. "It's very hard when you have been mentally preparing yourself for major surgery, especially as I was first told that I needed one in November 2024." Andrew Mundy, 58, from Lincoln, expressed fears that repeated delays to his tendon surgery could leave him permanently injured. He injured his knee in early February and was given an initial date for surgery at the end of May, which he said was cancelled because the consultant was on holiday. The surgery was rearranged for Friday but was cancelled because of the strike, he said. "I am furious and aware that every delay in surgery will make the chances of a successful repair even less likely," he said. "It is not fair that I may never recover from this injury due to delays in treatment. "It's frustrating because [the NHS] say that they are not cancelling stuff and things are running as normal, but they are cancelling stuff." Michele, from Somerset, has been waiting three years for spinal surgery. She has been told her appointment, which had been scheduled for Thursday, has been cancelled, which she believes is down to the strikes. Michele said she suffers "constant" and "relentless" nerve pain down the left side of her body. "I feel I've been let down, I feel like I'm not worth it. It's knocked me," she said. Michele said she had taken sick leave from work for more than a fortnight, having already taken a step back from her leadership role to work part-time from home due to the pain. "It's got to the point so I can't even do that now. It's really affecting my life," she added. John Dixon, 81, from the Isle of Wight, said he found out that his knee operation scheduled for Friday at Southampton General Hospital was cancelled with just three hours' notice. Mr Dixon said he was already on the ferry to Southampton when he received a call from the hospital informing him of the cancellation. "How can the NHS treat patients like this?" he said. "They must have [had] a good idea [on Thursday] without letting people go on long journeys just to return home." Michael Overson, from Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, has been waiting three years for a knee operation and found out on Friday his surgery, which had been scheduled for Tuesday, had been cancelled. Mr Overson is a delivery driver for a national supermarket chain and says the delay means he will have to "continue living and working in pain". "This places me in limbo as I have no idea when it'll be rearranged. I can't plan anything," he said. "The increased costs the strikes cause only causes greater harm to the NHS." Dr Tom Dolphin, the chairman of the BMA, said before the action began that "we are very sorry that strikes have become necessary". "Of course if people have emergencies or need urgent care they should still present to the hospital or their GP as usual, as they always would," he said. "Striking is something that doctors don't want to have to do." Additional reporting by Bernadette McCague, Mary Litchfield, Rozina Sini and Kris Bramwell NHS faces challenging few days during doctors strike, warns Streeting Why are resident doctors striking and what are they paid?
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
Sleep, run, hydrate - should you be a stickler for recommended daily doses?
It felt like there was a collective sigh of relief when a study, published this week, suggested 10,000 steps a day isn't the health utopia we had all been led to believe. The news that we only had to reach 7,000 steps was enough to quite literally stop us in our fervent step-counting stride. So what about some of the other health targets that many of us swear by? Can we fall short of the mark but still live long, healthy and happy lives? We've taken a handful of commonly cited healthy lifestyle benchmarks, examined them with various experts to get an idea of why they exist, explored the health claims, and, most importantly asked if there is any wriggle room. Is sleep so important that we have to spend so much of our lives doing it? How much exercise is enough? What about drinking water? How much do we really need? Disclosure - the below is not medical advice, it's more of an inspection of many of the health ideals we have on our radar. Water (6-8 glasses a day) According to the NHS, the average grown-up should be drinking between six and eight glasses (1.5-2 litres) of water a day. However, maybe we don't need to cart our fancy flagons around with us as much as we thought. Prof Neil Turner, kidney specialist at the University of Edinburgh, says as humans we existed for thousands of years without knowing what a pint or a litre was. "I mean, mice don't need flashing water bottles telling them how much to drink - why do we?" he says. "Our bodies are set up to do things just right - we eat when we are hungry, we breathe when we need to breathe, and we drink when we are thirsty." Oh. Is it really that simple? According to Prof Turner, who has seen a lot of kidneys in his time, that rule applies to the vast majority of us. Those with specific conditions, like a kidney disorder, may have to drink more. He says if our urine is dark, in the general healthy population, we shouldn't panic that we haven't drank enough - that is the kidney doing its job. It is reserving water in our body, he explains, and our body should tell us that we feel thirsty and then we will get a drink. Dr Linia Patel, a performance nutritionist, disagrees. We might drink different amounts, she says, due to factors like our size, how warm we are, whether we've been drinking alcohol, but she feels having a target of 1.5 to 2 litres is a good thing - especially for women. "I would definitely say from a women's health point of view, where I work, what I see is a lot of the symptoms [associated] with being dehydrated. It might be fatigue, constipation, brain fog, feeling hungry [or] cravings." She says that if the problem is related to hydration then it's "an easy one to get right, if you're consistent with it". Sleep (7-9 hours a night) Moving on to sleep - the NHS recommends seven to nine hours a night for the average adult, and there's not much wriggle room to be had there. Prof Ama Johal, a specialist in sleep disorders, says sleep is vital; without it we are beginning to shave years off our lives. "The evidence is there, there are huge bodies of research which show that the health benefits are multiple. "A good night's sleep - that's at least seven hours of quality sleep - reduces the risk of obesity, diabetes, depression and finally, it lowers mortality rates." He points to a study which used 10,000 British civil servants - those that slept for fewer than five hours a night had an increased risk of early death. But could we shave an hour off the minimum recommended - and settle for six hours a night? "No," Prof Johal says. "As soon as we lower the limit then there's a risk people will think it's ok to sleep for less time." Cat napping? "Unfortunately not," he says, "Our bodies have very different reactions to naps through the day, and eventually if we tried to make up the hours we were missing overnight by sleeping through the day, we would struggle to fall asleep at night." But all is not lost, nappers among us - there are studies that suggest a short snooze in the day can keep the brain youthful, and even compensate for poor or broken sleep the night before. Prof Johal suggests that for those who struggle to get the recommended amount, try to target a few nights of good sleep a week, and just being "more aware that sleep is so important". Emily and Lucy are two avid walkers from Manchester. But alongside their love of walking, the two women share a less healthy trait: they struggle to nod off because of their anxiety. But they say the target of seven hours sleep a night is something they "are working towards". Exercise (150 mins a week) Emily and Lucy are, however, "definitely nailing it" when it comes to exercise. Through their group, Soft Girls who Hike, they have found a love of walking which has not only improved their mental health, they say, but connected them with many other women. They don't try to meet all the healthy benchmarks on their radar, they explain, because "life just gets in the way". But they are doing 7,000 steps a day and taking long, low impact walks at the weekend. The Chief Medical Officer recommends doing 150 minutes of exercise a week and two strength training sessions. Is that achievable for most? Dr Sinead Roberts, a sports nutritionist who trains elite athletes, is pragmatic in her approach. While moderate strength training and physical activity is vital for maintaining muscle mass, she says, as well as resistance to injuries and supporting our immune systems, you have to adapt the recommendations to fit with your life. "Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise people," she says. "This phrase really does apply here. "I have friends who do nothing - and that really does show, I say, 'You're walking like an 80-year-old!' "But if you are doing one strength session a week and some moderate exercise then that is definitely a good thing, just try and do more if you can." She uses an analogy of a highway - the more things we can do to stay healthy the wider the road, which, in turn means we can go off course sometimes without careering up a grassy verge. "All those benchmarks are interlinked - you can't just do one healthy thing and ignore the rest. Equally you don't need to put so much pressure on yourself to achieve them all." This attitude chimes with Emily and Lucy, who say they happily "chip away" at some of the health benchmarks. "For example, we might do five minutes of meditation [which is] better than nothing, but we wouldn't stress about not hitting the recommended goal." Mindfulness (10 mins a day) Through its Every Mind Matters campaign, the NHS recommends 10 minutes of mindfulness a day. Basically, instead of pondering the future or thinking about the past, you pay attention to the moment, noticing what is going on inside and outside of ourselves, letting our thoughts pass by without judgement. Some studies suggest activities like mindfulness can have a positive effect and also help change the structure of the brain. Psychologist Natasha Tiwari, founder of The Veda Group, says 10 minutes is a good start to "give the mind time to settle, and the brain enough time to truly benefit" from the process of mindfulness. But many of us lead busy lives, and to carve out 10 minutes in the day can be a luxury. In some respects, could having these targets make life more stressful? Ms Tiwari disagrees - it's less about the time spent and more about the awareness of mindfulness and bringing it to our everyday lives. "Even brief pauses," she explains, "can still have a positive impact". Most experts I've spoken to agree that while benchmarks are useful, and simplicity is key, it's better not to fixate on a number. Rather, find a way to incorporate a healthy outlook to diet, exercise and mental health into everyday life. After sitting for some time writing this, I am going to sign off - there is another health benchmark I've just come across: limiting sitting down to less than eight hours a day. So, I had better get moving. More Weekend Picks People say cola and fries are helping their migraines - but there's a twist Stop telling me to lower my cortisol - it's making me stressed! Emma is doing something she swore she never would - buying her kids vapes
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
NHS: Strike-hit appointments to be rebooked in two weeks but will impact others
NHS England has said hospitals are aiming to reschedule appointments cancelled due to strikes within two weeks, but warned of knock-on impacts for other patients. Professor Meghana Pandit, NHS England's co-national medical director (secondary care), said that despite the five-day walkout by thousands of resident doctors in England, which began on Friday, local trusts have managed to maintain services with 'minimal disruption'. She told BBC Breakfast: 'If there's any rescheduling or postponement of surgery or appointments then the hospitals try their upmost best to get that appointment rescheduled within two weeks. 'I know it is distressing and even two weeks is too long for somebody to wait and actually that has an impact on the people who who are then displaced at that two week period.' Prof Pandit said there were three 'derogations' granted on Friday, a process which allows hospitals to request striking doctors return to work if there is a risk to patient safety. Nottingham City Hospital reached an agreement with the British Medical Association (BMA) to exempt one doctor from the strike to work on the neonatal intensive care unit. A derogation was agreed for one doctor in the emergency department and another doctor in the ISGM at the Northern General Hospital. The BMA said it had also agreed a derogation for two anaesthetists to work at University Hospital Lewisham on Saturday to ensure patient safety. It comes as Wes Streeting said 'we are doing everything we can to minimise' patient harm. The Health Secretary condemned the strike as 'reckless' and said the Government would not allow the BMA to 'hold the country to ransom'. Sir Keir Starmer made a last-minute appeal to resident doctors, saying the strikes would 'cause real damage'. He added: 'Most people do not support these strikes. They know they will cause real damage… 'These strikes threaten to turn back the clock on progress we have made in rebuilding the NHS over the last year, choking off the recovery.' The BMA has argued that real-terms pay has fallen by around 20% since 2008, and is pushing for full 'pay restoration'.
