This week I was joined by Mr Russell Pearson, Consultant Opthalmologist at Spire Hartswood Hospital. He was discussing vision correction surgery.

Lens-based vision correction surgery is essentially the same as cataract removal and involves exchanging the natural lens in your eye and replacing it with an artificial lens to restore vision. In basic cataract surgery a single vision lens is used eliminating the need for distance vision glasses. With lens-based vision corrective surgery , the natural lens is replaced according to your with a more sophisticated varifocal lens, according to your prescription, restoring both near and distance vision.

This is not something that is available on the NHS, who only provide standard standard cataract surgery.

The surgery is normally over in a few hours and the patient can leave on the same day. A local anaesthetic is all that is required, and normal activities can be resumed within a couple of days.

It is geneally better than laser surgery as after laser surgery eyes can deteriorate whereas lens based surgery isn’t affected by age so there is usually no deterioration. When you think about how much money you might spend on glasses over the years, it is well worth considering. it is possible to call spire Hartswood direct, or look on their website for more information.