Our Eye Surgery Process

Talk to our friendly staff

Are you suitable?

Your consultation

Your surgery day

Suitability is the most important step in the whole laser eye treatment and vision correction process.

Successful laser eye surgery is about selecting and screening for the right candidates. With well chosen eligible patients and an expert surgeon, both results and safety are extremely good. This is why we are very selective about who we treat, and take a quality over quantity approach to vision correction.

Making sure patients are highly suitable for laser surgery has allowed Focus to achieve a 100% 20/20 success rate for all common short-sighted prescriptions

There are a number of common reasons and eye conditions that can mean you are not suitable for laser eye surgery. If this is the case, alternative lens-based procedures, such as refractive lens exchange (RLE) or an implantable collamer lens (ICL) may still be an option for you.

We can quickly learn if you are broadly suitable for vision correction with a simple 10-minute telephone call. If there are no clear reasons why you may not be a good candidate for eye surgery, the next step would be an in-depth consultation with one of our expert clinicians.

Book a Consultation

To get a better idea of how we can help you, and also the different types of services we offer, book a consultation now.

Who is suitable for LASIK surgery?

If you have healthy eyes and have short-sight with or without some degree of astigmatism, it is likely you are a good candidate for LASIK or PRK eye surgery. At Focus Clinic, we can treat most myopic prescriptions up to -10.00 dioptres, depending on your corneal thickness. The WaveLight laser used at our clinic removes less tissue per dioptre than some other lasers, so we can often treat even very high levels of short-sightedness.

Mild to moderate amounts of long-sightedness (hyperopia) can usually be corrected.

We can also help many patients who suffer from presbyopia (the need for reading glasses) with our LASIK Blended Vision procedure, or refractive lens exchange.

How old should you be?

Most laser eye surgery patients are aged between 20 and 65. The minimum age is 18 years old; if you started wearing glasses when you were very young, your prescription may be stable at 18 and so you may be suitable for treatment. More commonly, short-sighted prescriptions have not stabilised until the 20s. Once your prescription is stable, usually showing no change of 12 months, then you can consider surgery for a long-lasting result.

At the higher end, there is no age limit for laser treatment as long as there is no eye disease or problem. Some patients who are 60+ may be better helped by a lens-based procedure, such as refractive lens exchange, depending on the severity of the prescription and eye anatomy. Our surgeons can advise you on your options.

Severe prescriptions

Some extreme prescriptions are not suitable for laser eye surgery but may be correctable by lens implants, e.g ICL or RLE procedures.

Dry eyes

This is the most commonly seen side-effect from laser eye procedures. However, it is an avoidable complication for most patients and down to selecting the right people to have surgery, as well as pre-treating to improve any pre-existing dry eye. We may spend several months on the latter, preparing the patient for their LASIK or PRK.

At Focus Clinic, we see less than 1% of patients for dryness in the eyes by 12 months after their procedure

The majority of dry eye comes from excess evaporation of the tears and pre-operative remedies can help restore normal eye lubrication.

Keratoconus

Keratoconus occurs in around 1 in 2000 people in the UK and leads to corneal thinning and steepening. Such patients are not suitable for standard laser eye surgery. Treatments are available to prevent this condition worsening using a relatively new approach called collagen cross linking.

Some clinics are using cross-linking for all LASIK procedures, commonly called LASIK Extra. This is not necessary or even recommended and not offered at Focus Clinic.

Stability of the prescription

The prescription should be stable for 12 to 24 months before undergoing laser eye treatment.

Previous eye conditions

Factors that will be considered include cataracts or early lens opacities, glaucoma, previous herpes infections in the eye, diabetic eye disease, and previous eye surgery.

Immune disorders

Some problems of the immune system, such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus and other collagen vascular diseases, can prevent you from having laser eye surgery.

If we find a cause for why LASIK surgery or another refractive procedure is not right for you, we will advise you at your consultation.

Your journey

One of the most important parts of your journey in to get rid of your glasses or contact lenses will occur when you visit a laser eye clinic for the first time. You will get a very good idea of the level of attention to detail the clinic provides and how comfortable you will feel having treatment in that particular clinic. Observe the level of care, thoughtfulness of the team and the attitude or comments of other patients present on that day.

At Focus, the laser eye surgery consultation is a chance not only to assess you thoroughly to see if you are a suitable candidate but also an opportunity for you to get to know some of the team, familiarise yourself with our facilities and most importantly feel welcome, safe and relaxed.

Before your consultation at our London clinic you will speak to one of our patient care co-ordinators who will run through a series of medical questions to make sure you are a possible candidate for correction. This is often an opportunity for us to answer any questions you may have about Focus or surgery for glasses or contact lenses in general, and we’re always happy to help. We may at this point provide a basic price quotation and then arrange a time for you to come and meet us.

We’ll send out some forms in the post which you should complete and bring along.

On the day of your consultation you’ll meet our clinic co-ordinator who will take your forms and your previous prescription details. You can then relax, grab a freshly brewed cappuccino or cold drink before being escorted by one of our technicians to the scanning room. Here we take precise measurements of your eyes – the results are analysed by our computer systems to provide an incredibly accurate map of each of your eyes.

On the day of your consultation you’ll meet our clinic co-ordinator who will take your forms and your previous prescription details. You can then relax, grab a freshly brewed cappuccino or cold drink before being escorted by one of our technicians to the scanning room. Here we take precise measurements of your eyes – the results are analysed by our computer systems to provide an incredibly accurate map of each of your eyes.

Compared to your consultation, your treatment will feel very quick – we ensure all the hard work in assessment and scanning is of course carried out and checked thoroughly before you have surgery.

It is rather like making a movie, where the final result is fairly short, but built upon possibly several years of work. Laser eye surgery is the same, as it’s the work that has preceded the surgery day that is most important.