Sainsbury's opened its first supermarket dental surgery last week (September 15) and may roll out the venture across the country.

The surgery, in Sale, is being run by Manchester dentist Lance Knight (pictured) who has been working on the development for a year. He says he approached Sainsbury's and has invested 'not quite seven figures' in the venture.

The surgery is open 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday, 10am-6pm on Saturday and 12-4pm on Sunday. It charges £16 for a check-up and fillings start at £30. Dr Knight said prices would be kept in line with NHS charges.

Dr Knight, whose Ultimate Style Spa practice in Manchester focuses on cosmetic and sports dentistry, said he wanted to revive high street dentistry as the current model was not working.

'There's simply not enough emphasis on prevention and people can't find a dentist,' he said. 'What people want is accessibility and the chance to see a dentist before or after work, or during their lunch hour.' He added that if this trial is successful he would like to roll it out across the country.

Mary Guilfoyle, the first patient at the walk-in surgery, was suffering from toothache and told the Manchester Evening News that she could not get an appointment at her usual dentist for two days.

David Gilder, Head of Professional Services at Sainsbury's, said: 'There is a shortage of dental practices in the UK and the launch of this new service goes some way to providing local people with greater access to dental advice and a range of procedures.

'We have a long history of providing healthcare services in our stores, from pharmacies and travel clinics to the launch of the first ever GP surgery in Heaton Park. These services have been enormously popular with customers wanting access to healthcare professionals at convenient locations and flexible times.'

Boots launched a dental business in 1999 with practices in stores offering extended opening hours and Saturday appointments, but in 2004 it closed its 54 surgeries following losses of £16.3 million on its dental, chiropody and laser clinics.

Speaking at a conference coinciding with the Sainsbury's opening, Liz Phelps, social policy officer at Citizens Advice, said there was a 'massive mismatch' between demand and supply of dentistry in the UK and consumers faced a 'nightmare' when trying to find out which NHS practices were taking on patients. Citizens Advice received 6,260 queries about dentistry in 2006/07 and 5,054 last year, she told the conference on developing consumer involvement in primary dental care at the Royal College of Surgeons in London.

The government's 11% increase in funding to PCTs, ringfenced for dentistry until 2011, was welcome, but many PCTs had been slow to map the needs for services in their areas, she said. She added that Citizens Advice was about to launch a mystery shopper exercise to test the usefulness of PCTs' dental helplines in directing people to NHS practices taking on patients.

Andy Fisher, manager of the health value for money team at the National Audit Office, said: 'PCTs are only just finding their feet in dentistry. They don't understand what the local needs are and lack the skills to commission millions of pounds of dentistry.'