Nearly three-quarters of volunteers are Sikh but there is a multi-faith mix of helpers, with 20 doctors and consultants and more than 25 pharmacists.
“It’s a labour of love… it’s something that you do because you care and you want to make that difference,” added Dr Kalirai.
The dental practice runs 700 consultations a year, with patients encouraged to pay what they can, while the pharmacies deal with 185,000 prescriptions each year.
Patients like Rajinder Singh Bhogal, 65, who has ulcerative colitis, describe the passion and support of the centre’s volunteers.
A doctor spent about 45 minutes with him when he suffered a prolonged bout of severe stomach pain.
“The advice and the help that I got was really, really supportive and pointed me in the right direction,” he said.
It took about eight weeks for the NHS to discover the discomfort was being caused by ulcers, and he said if he had not visited NHT, “it would have been a lot longer”.