COUNCIL leaders have demanded an urgent meeting with health bosses to address Pendle's dental crisis.

The move came as former mayor Coun Pauline McCormick said she spent a day ringing around East Lancashire to try and find an NHS dentist for her daughter.

The Reedley Tory councillor said she was told NHS practices weren't taking on any new patients, leaving her daughter no other choice than to go private and pay out more than £200.

The news comes just weeks after a dentist who was given more than £30,000 of public money to set up an NHS practice in Barnoldswick went private, leaving the town without a NHS surgery from next February.

Pendle MP Gordon Prentice fought to get the cash award for Adam Evans' Diamond Smiles practice, believing he would be providing a vital service for NHS patients.

The move towards private practices has left the whole of East Lancashire short of NHS dentists.

Coun McCormick said: "This situation is absolutely ridiculous. I spent all day ringing Accrington, Blackburn, Burnley, Nelson, Colne, Rossendale, you name it, but everyone I contacted couldn't offer my daughter an NHS service. We rang NHS Direct but was told unless it was an emergency we didn't stand a chance."

Nelson councillor Sonia Robinson, expressed concern about the issue at a full council meeting and added: "I have recently received a letter from the Primary Care Trust saying that my dentist, having completed two years' yanking, drilling and filling -- improving her skills, in fact -- on national health service patients, has now left the practice.

"This is to fill a lucrative dream - to become a private practitioner elsewhere and to pay off a £10,000 student loan. Understandable but regrettable.

"And because of her departure the NHS treatment is no longer available to myself and others whom she treated, a service to which we have financially contributed all our lives."

Council leader Alan Davies has recommended organising a meeting with the PCT to find out what is happening in the borough.