Tony Blair pledged yesterday to recruit more dentists to the NHS.

The prime minister was speaking during a live question and answer session on Sky News, in which a pensioner told him that she had had to pull out seven of her own teeth herself after failing to get an NHS appointment.

Blair said: "The problem is, I cannot suddenly just produce more dentists. We have to train them. We are actually opening new dental training schools and so on.

"It takes time. I cannot force them to come from the private sector back into the NHS."