Meet Our Dental Team

Dr Sarah Metias is one of Lancashire's most respected and experienced private dentists — a clinician whose qualifications place her firmly in the top tier of her profession across the UK. With 19 years of clinical practice, she holds the prestigious Membership of the Joint Dental Faculties from the Royal College of Surgeons London (MJDF RCS, 2011), alongside an Orthodontic Diploma (2023) — postgraduate Royal College postgraduate qualifications that relatively few general dentists hold.

As founder of Station House Dental Care and owner of our sister practice Tower Dental Blackpool, Sarah has spent over a decade building practices that genuinely put patients first. She holds specialist recognition for nervous patient care and orthodontics — two areas where her calm, compassionate approach and technical mastery have transformed the experiences of hundreds of patients who previously avoided the dentist altogether. As CQC Registered Manager, she takes direct personal accountability for the clinical standards and safety of every treatment delivered at Station House.

Her passion spans the full spectrum of cosmetic and restorative dentistry — composite bonding, veneers, smile makeovers, orthodontics and teeth whitening — where her artistic eye, meticulous technique and genuine care for patient outcomes produce results that consistently exceed expectations. Colleagues and patients alike describe her as warm, patient, unhurried and deeply committed — a dentist who treats every patient as she would treat her own family.

"I built Station House Dental Care because I believe the people of Barnoldswick and the surrounding communities deserve a dental practice that doesn't compromise. Not on skill, not on technology, not on the time we spend with each patient. I see people here who are terrified of the dentist, who haven't smiled properly in years because they are so self-conscious about their teeth — and changing that for them is the most rewarding thing I do. Every single person who sits in our chair deserves to leave feeling genuinely cared for, genuinely listened to, and genuinely transformed. That is what we are here to do."

Helpful Resources

Further Reading from Trusted Sources

All our clinicians are fully registered with the General Dental Council (GDC). You can verify any UK dentist's registration publicly:

• General Dental Council Register →
• Care Quality Commission →

Dr Alec Bate is, by any measure, one of the most experienced and accomplished dentists practising in the North of England today. With more than forty years of clinical experience across every aspect of general, orthodontic and cosmetic dentistry, Alec has dedicated his entire career to the two qualities that define exceptional dental care: technical mastery acquired over decades, and the calm, unhurried patient manner that only comes from treating tens of thousands of people through every kind of clinical situation imaginable. Patients who meet Alec invariably describe the same thing: a sense of complete confidence that they are in the hands of someone who has quite simply seen it all before — and knows exactly what to do.

Alec's specialism in orthodontics runs through his entire career. He undertook formal postgraduate orthodontic training at Whiston Hospital in Merseyside between 1979 and 1982 — one of the leading NHS orthodontic teaching centres of that era — and went on to run dedicated orthodontic contracts across the North West for several years, treating the full spectrum of fixed-brace and functional appliance cases. Today he is experienced across all major clear aligner systems including Invisalign and ClearCorrect, combining that modern aligner expertise with the diagnostic depth that only comes from a clinician who has treated orthodontics from first principles for four decades. Very few dentists in Lancashire can claim this combination of hospital-based orthodontic training and full contemporary aligner experience.

As a former Principal Dentist at two highly-regarded private practices, Alec has led clinical teams, mentored newly qualified dentists as an appointed Vocational Trainer, and taught composite bonding at postgraduate level on London-based training courses — passing on the techniques that put him among the UK's most skilled bonding clinicians. His private practice experience spans the full cosmetic spectrum: anterior and full-arch composite bonding, complete smile makeovers, veneers, whitening and aesthetic restorative work across every tooth in the mouth. When Alec works on your smile, he is drawing on a library of clinical cases most dentists will never accumulate in a whole career.

Where Alec truly shines, however, is with the patients other dentists find difficult: the nervous adult patient who has avoided treatment for years, and the child whose first dental experience will shape their relationship with dentistry for the rest of their life. Alec's gentle manner, his genuine warmth, and his willingness to take whatever time a patient needs have made him the first-choice clinician at Station House Dental Care for anyone who describes themselves as dental-phobic, anxious, or simply cautious. To book with Alec is to book with a dentist whose experience, skill and kindness are genuinely rare — and whose patients regularly tell us he is the most thorough and caring dentist they have seen.

Dr Junaid Khalil is a gifted aesthetic and restorative dentist who graduated with Merit in Bachelor of Dental Surgery from Barts and the London — a distinction awarded only to the top-performing students in his cohort. His academic record at one of the UK's most competitive dental schools, including A-levels in Chemistry (A*), Biology (A*) and Economics (A) at Ermysteds Grammar School, reflects an exceptional intellect that translates directly into the precision and artistry of his clinical work.

Junaid is one of the few dentists in the Pendle and Craven area with dedicated postgraduate training in Aesthetic and Restorative Dentistry, having completed an advanced course under Dr Bilal Arshad and Dr Monder Zbaeda covering anterior and posterior crown lengthening, direct and indirect composite bonding, ICON resin infiltration, and complex fixed and removable prosthodontics. He is a certified Invisalign provider since 2022 and is currently completing a Postgraduate Diploma in Implantology (2025) — the qualification that will allow him to plan and place dental implants here at Station House.

What makes Junaid truly special to this practice is his deep local connection. He completed his Foundation Year at Skipton Road Dental in Colne — just four miles from our door — and went on to work at Earby Dental and Dentozen Leeds before joining Station House. He knows the communities of Colne, Earby, Barnoldswick and Skipton personally, and many patients from these towns have followed him here. His chair-side manner is calm, methodical and reassuring — the kind of dentist who explains everything clearly and never makes you feel rushed.

Dr Jarmima Uddin is, quite simply, one of the most decorated young dentists in the North of England. In the space of just two years since qualifying, she has won the 2024 College of General Dentistry & GC Foundation Dentist Prize for an outstanding aesthetic case, the BACD Foundation Dentist Best Overall Case 2024, the BACD Foundation Dentist Best Anterior Composite Case 2024, and been named a 2025 Dentistry Awards Phillips Rising Star Finalist — four national-level accolades that place her among the very best emerging clinicians in the country.

Jarmima graduated from the University of Leeds with Distinction in 2023, having previously completed a BSc in Dental Hygiene and Therapy at the University of Birmingham — a unique dual-qualification pathway that gives her a level of understanding across preventive care, periodontal health and restorative dentistry that most dentists never acquire. With 7 years of total clinical experience spanning both therapy and full dental practice, she has treated thousands of patients across six different practices and brings a maturity and clinical confidence that belies her years.

Her specialist passion is aesthetic dentistry — composite bonding, whitening and clear aligners — where her artistic eye and meticulous hand produce results that consistently win national recognition. She is currently pursuing a Postgraduate Diploma in Aesthetic Restorative Dentistry, deepening an expertise that already exceeds what most high-street practices can offer. She works with her own clinical camera and personal restorative kit, reflecting a level of professional investment that speaks for itself.

Perhaps most importantly for Station House patients: Jarmima already knows Barnoldswick. She is a Bingley Grammar School alumna who worked as a Dental Therapist at Mydentist Barnoldswick from January 2019 to May 2021 — she has treated patients in this very community, understands the area intimately, and brings a genuine personal connection that no amount of clinical expertise alone can replicate.

Dr Saleem Qureshi is a dedicated and ambitious clinician who brings the energy of a dentist at the beginning of an exceptional career — combined with the training, discipline and breadth of experience that would credit someone far more senior. He qualified with a Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) from the Medical University of Plovdiv in 2021, completing a rigorous six-year programme that included a full internship year rotating through oral surgery, periodontics, endodontics, prosthodontics and orthodontics — a depth of clinical exposure that UK five-year programmes rarely match.

Since registering with the GDC, Saleem has deliberately built his experience across both NHS and private settings. At Smart Dental Care in Blackburn (2022–23), he treated one of the most clinically diverse patient populations in East Lancashire — complex restorations, multi-rooted endodontics, surgical and non-surgical extractions, full and partial dentures, and patients who had not seen a dentist in years. At Mydentist Shipley, he expanded into private treatments including Clearcorrect Clear Aligners, Philips Zoom whitening and Enlighten whitening, building the cosmetic side of his practice alongside his core clinical skills.

In 2024, Saleem completed the prestigious BAIRD Evidence-Based & Clinical Course in Implant Dentistry in Leeds — a Postgraduate Certificate programme that is widely regarded as one of the best implant foundations in the UK. He is Level 1 & 2 CBCT trained, meaning he can plan and interpret the 3D cone-beam scans that are essential for safe, precise implant placement. Station House Dental Care is where Saleem is building his implant career, under the mentorship and clinical governance of our principal Dr Sarah Metias.

Saleem is from Keighley — just 13 miles from Barnoldswick — and his commitment to this area is genuine and personal. He is not a dentist passing through; he is a local clinician investing his career in the patients of Pendle, Craven and West Yorkshire. His future goals include a Postgraduate Diploma in Restorative and Aesthetic Dentistry, orthodontic training, sedation certification and full-arch implant surgery — an ambition that, combined with the support structure at Station House, positions him as a dentist whose best years are firmly ahead of him.