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Mr David Allamby
MD, FRCOphth, FRCS
LASIK Eye Surgery in London
20/20 vision from as little as £4,400
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LASIK is the most frequently performed laser eye treatment.
LASIK eye surgery at Focus Clinics can correct short-sight, long-sight and astigmatism, with treatment planned around your prescription and eye health.
For patients looking for the most advanced option, Focus Clinics also offers Ray-Tracing Guided LASIK, which uses a detailed 3D model of the eye to create a more personalised treatment plan.
To be considered for LASIK surgery, you need to:
- Be over the age of 18
- Have a stable prescription over the past 12 months
Most people with healthy eyes and short-sightedness (with or without astigmatism) are good candidates for LASIK eye surgery, except for extreme prescriptions.
Mild to moderate degrees of long-sightedness can also usually be treated, and we can also treat many patients who need glasses for reading with our LASIK Blended Vision procedure.
Our LASIK eligibility guide provides more details on whether you'd be a suitable candidate for LASIK surgery.
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See The Difference With Focus Clinics
At Focus Clinics, our team has over 70 years of combined industry experience and has completed over 60,000 successful surgeries.
Want to see real reactions from real people, just moments after they've had LASIK surgery?
Focus has a 100% 20/20 vision success rate for all common short-sighted prescriptions using its ray-tracing guided LASIK technique
Focus Clinics is Rated #1 for LASIK Surgery in the UK on TrustPilot
LASIK Eye Surgery at Focus Clinic London
...is considered pain-free by most patients
...is performed as a day-case with the whole visit lasting 2 hours
...treatment completed within 10 minutes for both eyes
...gives excellent vision in 4 hours for most patients
What Happens During LASIK Surgery?
LASIK eye surgery ('laser-assisted in-situ keratomileusis') is the most widely performed laser eye surgery in London to correct short-sight, long-sight, astigmatism and presbyopia (the need for reading glasses).
At Focus, your surgeon will perform more than 150 steps on each eye with our advanced ray-tracing guided LASIK procedure, pioneered by chief surgeon David Allamby, resulting in a 100% success rate for all common myopia prescriptions and a boosted safety profile. For LASIK in general, 90% of the treatment is done manually by the surgeon, with the lasers active for only 10% of the duration. Hence, getting an expert surgeon is very important.
Anaesthetic eye drops are applied to fully numb the surface of your eye, ensuring there is no pain during the procedure. If you are very nervous, we can provide a tablet to help you relax, though most patients manage perfectly well without the need for a sedative.
We will clean your face and the area around your eyes, and you will have a paper hat to keep your hair away. You will lie down on the laser bed and be positioned so that you can see a small blinking green light.
A small speculum will be used to keep your eye open. While it is in place, you cannot feel it, and you can blink as normal. It will feel exactly as if you are blinking, even though the eye does not close. You don't need to try to keep your eyes open.
Your surgeon uses the first Ziemer femtosecond laser to create a corneal flap. You will feel a sense of pressure for about 25 seconds. This extremely precise laser uses a finer pulse for better healing.
Your prescription will already have been programmed into the second WaveLight ‘excimer’ laser. After the flap has been gently folded to the side, the excimer laser will correct your vision, usually in just 5-10 seconds. You simply need to look at the green light.
The laser treatment itself takes 5-10 seconds and is painless.
LASIK is performed on each eye separately, usually starting with the right eye, followed by the left. Each eye is completed in 5 minutes
Speak to the team
We can give you a good idea of your suitability over the phone and schedule you for an initial consultation.
What Happens After LASIK?
The LASIK procedure generally takes no longer than 10 minutes for both eyes and recovery begins as soon as the procedure is over.
Most patients notice improved vision as soon as the surgery is over, and final results should settle within 2 to 3 months, depending on the prescription.
Your eyes will feel watery, gritty and/or heavy for around 3-4 hours after your procedure. Anaesthetic drops are supplied in your take-home pack, which you may want to use once or twice.
Who Is Suitable For LASIK Eye Surgery?
Most people with healthy eyes and short-sightedness, with or without astigmatism, are good candidates for LASIK eye surgery, except those with extreme prescriptions. Mild to moderate degrees of long-sightedness can also usually be treated.
LASIK may also be combined with Blended Vision to treat the need for reading glasses.
LASIK vs LASEK: What’s the Difference?
LASIK and LASEK both reshape the cornea to correct vision, but they treat the eye differently. LASIK uses a thin corneal flap and usually offers faster visual recovery, while LASEK/PRK treats the corneal surface without creating a flap
LASEK may be recommended for some patients with thinner or more irregular corneas, or where lifestyle factors make a flap less suitable. Your eye scans and consultation will determine which approach is right for you.
LASIK Safety and Risks
LASIK has a strong safety record, but no surgical procedure is completely risk-free. Careful screening is particularly important because your corneal shape and thickness, prescription and eye health all influence whether LASIK is appropriate for you.
Possible issues can include dry eye, temporary night-vision symptoms and regression over time. At Focus Clinics, we use detailed screening to identify patients who may be better suited to another treatment or should not have surgery.
LASIK Eye Surgery Costs
LASIK at Focus Clinics starts from £4,400 for both eyes. The exact price depends on your prescription and the treatment recommended following your consultation.
Your treatment includes assessment, surgery and ongoing aftercare, with a 10-year guarantee available for eligible short-sighted patients and Lifetime Aftercare. Flexible finance options are also available.
LASIK Laser Eye Surgery: Your Questions Answered
Focus Clinic, London. These LASIK answers are written and reviewed by our chief surgeon, Mr David Allamby MD, who has performed more than 30,000 laser eye surgery procedures over 25 years.
Focus is an Alcon-named Centre of Excellence and European training centre for ray-tracing-guided LASIK.
LASIK (short for laser-assisted in-situ keratomileusis) uses two lasers to reshape the cornea and correct short-sight, long-sight and astigmatism. First, a femtosecond laser creates a wafer-thin top-layer flap, which is folded aside; an excimer laser then sculpts the tissue underneath. The flap is carefully put back into place and seals on its own - no stitches.
It helps to picture the sequence, because it explains why recovery is so quick. First, the femtosecond laser creates a hinged flap about the thickness of a human hair, which is gently folded aside. Next, the excimer laser removes microscopic amounts of tissue to change the cornea’s curve. It does not burn; it breaks molecular bonds, effectively evaporating the tissue. The various carbon molecules released give it a burning smell, but it’s not. The ablation is cool and precise, and takes a matter of seconds. Then the flap is laid back down, where it holds itself in place without needing stitches. The whole process takes about five minutes.
That flap is LASIK’s defining feature. Because the flap is returned to its original position, the surface is barely disturbed. Most people see better straight away, and pretty well within hours. There is very little discomfort.
One point most explanations miss: the word “LASIK” tells you the method, not the quality of the result. That comes from the treatment plan. LASIK removes a disc of tissue by evaporating it away with a laser. But what shape to remove is the key to the outcome.
Older wavefront-optimised profiles do a good job and, in effect, remove a contact lens shape. (Bastawrous et al., 2011) But ray-tracing-guided LASIK goes much further.
First, we build an exact digital replica of your eye from around 140,000 measurements - your digital eye twin. That’s clever, but even better is that we can now test your treatment on your eye twin before a single pulse touches your real eye. Over and over again until the ideal result is achieved. Only then do you receive the treatment. It’s still LASIK, but the outcomes are better. (He and Bala, 2023)
The reshaping LASIK performs is permanent because the cornea does not regrow the tissue that has been removed. For most people with a stable, mild-to-moderate prescription and a healthy cornea, the correction lasts for life. But stronger prescriptions carry a higher chance of a small drift back over the years.
That drift has a name: regression. It is gradual and may not occur for many years, though it is linked to how strong your prescription was to begin with. A twenty-year study found that roughly one in five patients had drifted back somewhat two decades on. Regression doesn’t cause a full return to the original prescription, but you might see about a drift of around a quarter or so (Hickenbotham et al., 2023).
Keep regression separate from an early enhancement, which is a small top-up done in the first few months to fine-tune the initial result. With modern ray-tracing-guided LASIK, that early enhancement rate is now around 1 in 400 (He and Bala, 2023). That’s a 40-fold drop from the early days of LASIK. (Hersh et al., 2003)
There is one change no laser can prevent. From your mid-forties, reading vision fades as the lens inside the eye ages. This is called presbyopia, and it happens to everyone. It is not the LASIK wearing off.
For short-sighted patients, any enhancement for distance vision at Focus is covered by our 10-year guarantee, and every patient has Lifetime Aftercare, so we stay involved for as long as you have your eyes.
LASIK’s hallmark is the thin corneal flap that lets you see clearly within a day. PRK and LASEK work on the surface with no flap (after removing the skin layer), so recovery is slower and more painful. SMILE removes a small disc of tissue through a keyhole opening. All three end in a reshaped cornea; they simply take different routes to get there.
LASIK is the most widely performed laser eye surgery in the world for good reason: fast visual recovery, minimal discomfort and the widest range of prescriptions. The flap makes it the easiest to fine-tune later, if needed. It can also be ray-tracing guided.
PRK and LASEK, which are essentially the same surface procedure, skip the flap altogether. That makes them a safer choice for thinner or more irregular corneas, and for anyone in contact sports, such as high-impact martial arts, where a flap could be an issue. The trade-off is a blurry, tender week or two while the surface heals.
SMILE keeps things flapless too, but works differently again, extracting a lens-shaped sliver from within the cornea. It suits short-sight and astigmatism but visual recovery is slower than LASIK.
A recent multi-centre trial of the newest SMILE Pro platform reached 20/20 in 93.2% of eyes (Sekundo et al., 2025), below the 100% delivered by ray-tracing LASIK (He and Bala, 2023). SMILE cannot use ray-tracing. Another point to consider is that, if you need an enhancement after SMILE, it can’t be done with another SMILE procedure. You will need to have LASIK or PRK
The honest summary: the best procedure is the one your cornea and prescription point to, not the one with the newest name.
Most suitable LASIK patients reach the 20/20 line or better. Across modern research, around 95% get there (Solomon et al., 2009), and with ray-tracing-guided LASIK, published series show 20/20 or better in every eye treated, a 100% success rate (He and Bala, 2023).
The most important word in that sentence is “suitable”. A prescription that has settled, sitting within the treatable range, on a healthy cornea, is what puts the odds firmly in your favour. Proper screening is how we make sure that is you.
Ray-tracing technology has raised the ceiling. By mapping and testing your whole eye’s optics before surgery, recent studies report that every eye reaches 20/20, with satisfaction around 98-99% (He and Bala, 2023; Yang et al., 2026). This surpasses our own published research: across 887 eyes, 20/20 was reached by every patient using both eyes together, and by 96.9% of individual eyes on their own (Ziaei, Mearza and Allamby, 2015).
Even the latest SMILE Pro falls a little short, with a recent multi-centre study showing 93.2% of eyes could see 20/20 or better 6 months after surgery (Sekundo et al., 2025).
Two things are worth holding onto. First, 20/20 is the baseline for “normal” sight, not the sharpest a healthy eye can manage; many people see beyond it. Second, ray-tracing protects your night vision at the same time, so quality in low light isn't sacrificed for the daytime number.
Push any clinic for both numbers: how many hit 20/20, and how many go beyond it.
LASIK is among the most heavily studied procedures in all of medicine, and serious complications are now genuinely uncommon. Most of your safety is decided before the laser is switched on, in the screening that identifies the eyes that should not be treated.
The numbers have moved a long way in a generation. Serious infection now runs at roughly 1 in 43,000, down 10-fold, largely because the flap is created with a femtosecond laser rather than an old-fashioned blade (Leccisotti et al., 2024). Corneal weakening, or ectasia, has fallen 20-fold to about 1 in 3,300, thanks to modern scanners that catch the subtle warning signs beforehand (Ambrósio, 2019).
When patients are unhappy, it often comes down to one of three things: night-vision symptoms, dry eye, or regression. Each now has options. Ray-tracing-guided treatment has largely eliminated the induction of night-vision problems, and we consider it the standard of care. Research shows low-light optical quality preserved or improved, rather than degraded (Kanellopoulos, 2024).
Dry eye should be treated aggressively before surgery, reducing post-op risks. If regression occurs, as long as sufficient corneal tissue remains, it can be topped up.
None of this replaces the single most important safeguard: a surgeon willing to say “No”.
If a cornea looks suspicious or the eyes are very dry, the safest option is sometimes no treatment. After more than 30,000 procedures, our chief surgeon Mr David Allamby MD, believes that judgement is exactly what protects your sight, and may not be something you find at the cheapest clinic.
LASIK is not for everyone, and a good clinic will turn some people away. You may be unsuitable, or better served by a different procedure.
Some reasons you may not be suitable for LASIK include:
1. Your prescription is still changing
2. Your cornea is too thin or irregular
3. You may have keratoconus
4. Your eyes are very dry
5. Your prescription is out of range
6. You are pregnant or nursing, or
7.You are under 18
Take these one at a time, because most are a “not yet” or a “not like this” rather than a flat no.
A moving prescription is the first gate. We want to see it stable for a year. Treating a target that is still shifting lets your own eyes undo the work.
The cornea is next. If it is too thin or its shape is suspicious, LASIK’s flap may leave too little tissue in reserve, so we may steer you towards surface LASEK (or PRK) or an implantable contact lens (ICL) instead. This is also where we screen for early keratoconus, since the tissue a procedure leaves behind is a good predictor of later corneal stability (Santhiago et al., 2015).
Then there is dry eye, the most common issue and one patients often do not know they have. We treat this first with a combination of eye drops and other therapies. Mild to moderate dryness is often treatable. However, eyes that are too dry should not have refractive surgery.
Very high prescriptions may sit outside the laser’s range. An implantable contact lens may do a better job. And pregnancy, nursing, or certain eye and health conditions mean waiting. You should also be aged 18 or over.
A thorough assessment, not a quick online quiz, is the only true way to know.
The LASIK procedure itself is remarkably quick. The reshaping takes seconds per eye, and you are in the laser suite for only 20 minutes. It's still sensible to set aside a couple of hours for the whole appointment, most of which is checks and preparation, not surgery.
Here is where the time actually goes. Making the flap with the femtosecond laser takes about 20 to 30 seconds. The excimer laser then reshapes the cornea in roughly 5 to 15 seconds for most prescriptions. Add it all up, and the surgery within your 2-hour visit is about 10 to 12 minutes; ray-tracing adds only a minute or two while we test and refine the plan on the digital model of your eye.
So what fills the remainder of the time in the clinic? It’s all about the vital checks to ensure the surgery is safe and relaxed. We will repeat any tests needed, often remeasure your prescription, and answer any questions you have. We’ll take some time to talk about your post-operative drops and aftercare. We’ll explain the do’s and don’ts, and when you can resume normal activities.
The treatment itself is straightforward and lasts 10-12 minutes. Expect to be in the laser room for about 20 minutes altogether. You don’t need to fast before the procedure, so have your breakfast as normal. We numb your eyes with drops, so no needles or injections. You are awake throughout, which is essential for the procedure. Afterwards, you will have a brief rest in the lounge before heading home.
The reassuring truth is that the part most people are anxious about, the laser, is over in the time it takes to read this paragraph. The time spent at the clinic is mostly patience, preparation and care, not surgery.
LASIK is essentially painless, but you may feel some pressure. Anaesthetic drops numb the eye, so during treatment you notice pressure, not pain, and only for 20 to 30 seconds while the flap is being made. You feel nothing at all as the excimer laser does its work.
It is all done with drops, so no injection and no needle goes near the eye. That single fear costs many people years of wearing glasses. The drops can sting for a second as they go in, then the eye is completely numb.
Some people worry about the speculum, the retainer that holds your eyelids open during the procedure. However, there is no pain involved, and once it’s in place, it feels as if you are still blinking. So blink as normal throughout.
During the flap creation step, your vision dims, and you may sense firm pressure, which most people describe as strange rather than uncomfortable. The flap is lifted and folded to the side. As the cornea is reshaped, you may notice a smell and a soft buzzing, but no heat or sharp pain. Once the numbing wears off, expect a few hours of grittiness and watering, much like an eyelash caught under the lid, and then it settles. On average, that lasts about four hours. Your drops go home with you, including some anaesthetic drops, just in case.
For context, LASIK is the gentle one. Surface procedures such as PRK are genuinely sore or painful for the first two to three days, and managing that pain is well documented in the ophthalmology literature (Steigleman et al., 2022). LASIK simply does not put you through that.
Honestly, the hardest part is nerves, not sensation. It’s what’s happening in your mind, more than the eye. Tell us you are anxious, and we will talk you through every step, and a mild sedative is available if you want one.
LASIK recovery is fast, which is a large part of its appeal. Most people see well within a few hours and are back to normal life the next day. The finer settling, as the last of the fluctuation and dryness fades, takes a few months, but you are walking and seeing almost straight away, and pretty clear after a few hours.
The first day sets the tone. Vision is often clear enough to surprise you by that evening, and we see you the morning after to confirm everything is healing as it should. Expect some grittiness, watering during the first few hours, and perhaps a few halos around lights at first; these ease as the surface settles.
The next day your eyes will be comfortable and your vision typically very clear. Most patients I see are better than 20/20 the next day.
The early weeks are about protecting the eye and helping it heal. Use your drops exactly as prescribed, reach for artificial tears often (at least 6 times a day at first), and resist the urge to rub. Skip the gym for a few days and swimming for around two weeks to avoid infection. Don’t use small swimming goggles for one month, as they can put a lot of suction on the eye.
Then comes the slower, quieter phase. Your sight can briefly blur a little through the day for several weeks because of dryness - mild dry eye is almost universal early on. For most people, the result is fully stable by three to six months. In one long study, dry-eye symptoms had resolved in 99.2% of LASIK patients by a year (Bower et al., 2015). At Focus we treat dryness thoroughly before surgery and use dissolvable tear plugs to reduce dry eye during those first weeks.
The smoothest recoveries come from following aftercare closely.
In the UK, LASIK for both eyes usually sits between about £5,000 and £6,500 at quality clinics. You may see cheaper, but be careful. The figure is set by the technology and expertise behind it, not by a fixed price list. The eye-catching “from £595” adverts almost always rise once the essentials are added back in.
Three things move the number. The laser platform comes first: standard LASIK treatment sits at the lower end, while ray-tracing-guided LASIK is priced higher because the planning is far more detailed. Then the surgeon’s experience. And finally, look at what is actually bundled in, because this is where the real differences hide.
Watch for teaser prices. A headline such as “from £595 an eye” rarely survives contact with your real prescription, and it seldom includes modern technology. Think of it as getting a new car versus a 20-year-old one - the tech has changed a lot over the years. My key tip: Always ask for one written, all-inclusive total.
What can really set the costs apart is having to pay again if you need another procedure, called an enhancement. Many clinics will only include one year of free enhancements. Focus Clinic includes a 10-year free retreatment guarantee for all short-sighted prescriptions.
Put against the alternative, LASIK tends to look better value than it first appears. Add up decades of eye tests, frames, lenses, prescription sunglasses and contact-lens solutions, and the running cost of staying in glasses usually overtakes a single procedure (Berdeaux et al., 2002; Foo et al., 2021).
At Focus, LASIK for short-sight starts at £4,400 for both eyes, all-inclusive, including our 10-year don’t-pay-again guarantee. Our advice is simple: compare clinics on the total you will actually pay, and on who is doing the surgery, never on the advert.
References
Ambrosio R. Post-LASIK ectasia: twenty years of a conundrum. Semin Ophthalmol. 2019;34:66-68. doi.org/10.1080/08820538.2019.1569075
Bastawrous A, Silvester A, Batterbury M. Laser refractive eye surgery. BMJ. 2011;342:d2345. doi.org/10.1136/bmj.d2345
Berdeaux G, Alio JL, Martinez JM, Magaz S, Badia X. Socioeconomic aspects of laser in situ keratomileusis, eyeglasses, and contact lenses in mild to moderate myopia. J Cataract Refract Surg. 2002;28:1914-1923. doi.org/10.1016/S0886-3350(02)01496-7
Bower KS, Sia RK, Ryan DS, Mines MJ, Dartt DA. Chronic dry eye in PRK and LASIK: manifestations, incidence and predictive factors. J Cataract Refract Surg. 2015;41(12):2624-2634. doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrs.2015.06.037
Foo LL, Lanca C, Wong CW, Ting DSW, Lamoureux E, Saw SM, Ang M. Cost of myopia correction: a systematic review. Front Med (Lausanne). 2021;8:718724. doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2021.718724
He G, Bala C. Ray-tracing-guided myopic LASIK: real-world clinical outcomes. J Cataract Refract Surg. 2023;49(11):1140-1146. doi.org/10.1097/j.jcrs.0000000000001286
Hersh PS, Fry KL, Bishop DS. Incidence and associations of retreatment after LASIK. Ophthalmology. 2003;110(4):748-754. doi.org/10.1016/S0161-6420(02)01981-4
Hickenbotham AL, Tanehsakdi M, Chansue E. Long-Term Safety Results of LASIK Refractive Surgery: A Twenty-Year Retrospective Study. J Surg Res. 2023;6(3):303-309. doi.org/10.26502/jsr.10020314
Kanellopoulos AJ. Ray-tracing customization in myopic and myopic astigmatism LASIK treatments for low and high order aberrations treatment: 2-year visual function and psychometric value outcomes of a consecutive case series. Clin Ophthalmol. 2024;18:565-574. doi.org/10.2147/opth.s444174
Leccisotti A, Fields SV, De Bartolo G, Crudale C. Infectious keratitis after photorefractive keratectomy, femtosecond-LASIK and lenticule extraction in a 100,000-eye case series. Laser Ther. 2024. doi.org/10.4081/ltj.2024.389
Santhiago MR, Smadja D, Wilson SE, Krueger RR, Monteiro MLR, Randleman JB. Role of Percent Tissue Altered on Ectasia After LASIK in Eyes With Suspicious Topography. J Refract Surg. 2015;31(4):258-265. doi.org/10.3928/1081597X-20150319-05
Sekundo W, Chang JSM, Ganesh S, Hjortdal J, Wiltfang R. Keratorefractive lenticule extraction for myopia and myopic astigmatism with the VISUMAX 800: 6-month outcomes of a prospective multicentre post-market clinical follow-up study. J Refract Surg. 2025;41(3):e264-e271. doi.org/10.3928/1081597x-20250204-03
Solomon KD, Fernandez de Castro LE, Sandoval HP, et al. LASIK world literature review: quality of life and patient satisfaction. Ophthalmology. 2009;116(4):691-701. doi.org/10.1016/j.ophtha.2008.12.037
Steigleman W, Rose-Nussbaumer J, Al-Mohtaseb Z, Santhiago M, Lin CC, Pantanelli SM, Kim SJ, Schallhorn J. Management of Pain after Photorefractive Keratectomy: A Report by the American Academy of Ophthalmology. Ophthalmology. 2022. doi.org/10.1016/j.ophtha.2022.07.028
Yang L, Luo L, Zhang Y, et al. Ray-tracing-guided femtosecond LASIK: refractive outcomes, visual quality and patient satisfaction. Clin Ophthalmol. 2026;20. doi.org/10.2147/OPTH.S574112
Ziaei M, Mearza AA, Allamby D. Wavefront-optimized laser in situ keratomileusis with the Allegretto Wave Eye-Q excimer laser and the FEMTO LDV Crystal Line femtosecond laser: 6 month visual and refractive results. Cont Lens Anterior Eye. 2015;38(4):245-249. doi.org/10.1016/j.clae.2015.02.004
* 100% 20/20 success is from our peer-reviewed published results for LASIK binocular vision treating short-sight up to -6.00 dioptres including up to 2.00 dioptres of astigmatism.
**J Cataract Refract Surg. 2023 Nov 1;49(11):1140-1146. Ray-tracing-guided myopic LASIK: real-world clinical outcomes. George He, Chandra Bala
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