NHS Referral | Optimax

What is a cataract?

Cataracts form when the eye’s natural lens becomes cloudy as a result of eye tissues breaking down and proteins clumping together. Those with cataracts find that everyday activities like driving a car or reading a newspaper become harder and colours become difficult to distinguish.

Symptoms

In the early stages of a cataract’s formation, you may have no symptoms at all. Often, cataracts are picked up early in their development by your optician at a routine eye test, long before they have affected your vision or require treatment.

If you notice these symptoms, it’s important to visit your optician to confirm that you are indeed suffering with a cataract.

Cloudiness

Your vision starts to feel a bit cloudy

Dull Colours

You notice that your colour perception is less vivid

Night Vision

You have problems with your night vision

Light Sensitivity

Your eyes have become sensitive to light and glare

Halos

You’re seeing halos around bright lights

Do you need surgery?

It's your decision whether or not to go ahead with cataract surgery. Cataracts usually slowly worsen over time and surgery is the only way to improve your eyesight.

Surgery is usually offered on the NHS if your cataracts are affecting your eyesight and quality of life. The decision to have surgery should not be based solely on your eye test (visual acuity) results. You may have other personal reasons for deciding to have surgery, such as your daily activities, hobbies and interests.

You can choose to put off having surgery for a while and have regular check-ups to monitor the situation. There are no medicines or eye drops that have been proven to improve cataracts or prevent them from getting worse.

How is cataract surgery performed?

Cataract surgery is a common and highly successful procedure that involves several key steps. It begins with the administration of local anaesthesia to numb the eye. A small incision is made in the cornea, allowing the surgeon to remove the cloudy natural lens affected by the cataract using ultrasound or laser technology. An artificial intraocular lens (IOL) is then implanted to replace the removed lens. The incision is closed, and most patients experience improved vision within a day or two, making the surgery a minimally invasive and highly effective solution for cataracts.

NHS Provider Selection Regime

Working hand-in-hand with our sister company, Ultralase Eye Clinics Limited, we are treating NHS patients through our Newton Abbot clinic. We offer cataract surgery as well as YAG capsulotomy treatment as part of the NHS Provider Selection Regime.

Cataract Surgery with NHS

Cataract treatment is an extremely straightforward procedure with over 400,000 cataract removal surgeries performed in the UK annually. Thousands of these treatments are carried out in our clinics each year. The procedure involves removing your eye’s natural lens and replacing it with a clear artificial lens. The treatment takes less than 10 minutes per eye and you are usually in and out of the treatment room within 20 minutes.

The recovery period is usually from around 3 days to 7 days, although this can vary from patient to patient. An optometrist will examine your eyes following your treatment to inform you when you can drive safely again. Most people will need to wear glasses for some tasks like reading after surgery, regardless of the type of lens they have fitted.

With the NHS, you'll usually be offered monofocal lenses, which have a single point of focus. This means the lens will be fixed for either near or distance vision, but not both. If you’re used to using one eye for distance and one for reading, you can ask to stay that way. This would mean you’ll get a near-sighted lens in one eye and a long-sighted lens in the other. If you have private cataract treatment, you may be able to choose either a multifocal or an accommodating lens, which allow the eye to focus on both near and distant objects. If you have cataracts in both eyes it may be recommended that both eyes are treated on the same day. This procedure is known as immediate sequential bilateral cataract surgery (ISBCS)*.

*ISBCS is an option for patients who opt for private care and is usually only recommended for people thought to have a low risk of complications. The surgeon will discuss this with you if this is an option. Otherwise, surgery is carried out 6 to 12 weeks apart to allow the recovery of one eye at a time.