A private Harley Street hospital is calling for a review of the rules surrounding laser eye surgery after an alleged rise in the number of patients receiving substandard care.
The London Eye hospital says the time has come for the industry to be ‘taken to task’ as increasing numbers of people approach them after receiving poor treatment or bad advice elsewhere.
Nearly 120,000 people in Britain undergo laser eye surgery every year to correct long and short-sightedness. However, almost one in 20 of these suffer some sort of complication, according to the Royal College of Ophthalmologists.
Last year consumer group Which? warned that some clinics aren’t properly explaining the risks involved with the procedure.
Dr Saj Khan, an eye surgeon at the London Eye hospital, said the hospital is helping more patients on the receiving end of unsatisfactory laser eye surgery treatment elsewhere than they were five years ago.
“At the moment, anybody who has a basic doctor’s qualification could in theory go off and spend a few hours or a couple of days learning how to use the kit and set off giving treatment,” he said.
The hospital’s medical director, Bobby Qureshi, called for a compulsory register of practitioners to be implemented, which patients can utilise in their search for a suitably qualified surgeon.
“Laser eye surgeons are, at present, only required to be registered as doctors; no specialist qualifications are legally required to carry out a laser eye procedure,” Mr Qureshi said.
“And with those who trained abroad, it’s even more difficult to establish levels of expertise in specific treatments. This makes a central register all the more important, as it gives patients the tools to check exactly in whose hands they are putting their vision.
“We have seen a rising number of people arriving at the London Eye hospital who have previously been given inaccurate information or poor care and we strongly believe that it is time for this industry to be taken to task.”