The number of people having laser eye surgery in the UK has increased following a boost in March 2006 when the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) issued their guidance that laser eye treatment was sufficiently safe and effective to be carried out on appropriately selected patients.

Since then, the number of clinics offering laser eye surgery has increased. The three UK laser eye chains – Optical Express, Optimax and Ultralase – have all stated plans to increase the number of clinics they run.

The credit crunch and stock market falls have led to a dip in recent weeks reported by most consultants doing private laser eye correction. However the overall trend has been a rise in the number of procedures carried out in the UK.

Overall all laser eye surgery prices are increasing or set to increase. The cost of new technology to give you better and safer surgery is very high and needs to be constantly updated. Even though FOCUS have the UK’s best prices, you will find the trend everywhere will be up.

For example, laser clinics used to need one laser at a cost of £1/3 million. Now they need two to offer blade free dual laser LASIK, total cost £2/3 million and treatment prices are no different on average to back in 2000.

In a nutshell it costs a lot to do this type of treatment and costs are only increasing. The benefit of that though: highly accurate treatments with better safety than ever before.

At FOCUS, we made a decision to buy the very best technology and to bring that to the UK at the lowest price so that more people could afford to get fantastic levels of surgeon, service and technology, all without compromise. That is not hype. It is just what we have wanted to do.

But all of that does cost and has to be paid for. And no government bail-outs for anyone in healthcare! Unlike some banks we have to be prudent, cautious and look after our customers without risk so that we will be here next week, next month and next year.

Price wars in the US a few years ago meant cheaper surgery at first. Then bankrupt clinics closing with people having to pay all over again in order to get their aftercare. Not a good result for patients in the end.

You may see some special offers following these recent economic changes until things level out and then improve again. You may want to take advantage of those, as longer term costs will go up.

Leeds-based laser eye surgery company Ultralase has increased its network of clinics by acquiring The Cambridge Eye Laser Clinic for an undeclared sum. The purchase is the company’s second since it was bought by 3i in February for £174 million, and follows the acquisition of Belfast’s Allclear clinic in April.

The Cambridge Eye Laser Clinic was created in 2002 by eye surgeon and clinical director Chris Stephenson as part of the Allclear Group of clinics. Stephenson bought out the clinic from the group in 2006.

The Cambridge centre add to Ultralase’s 23 UK clinics as part of the group’s ambitious expansion plans. Ultralase recently opened a new consulting room in Sheffield, with plans to open 3 more in 2008.

To help you find a UK laser eye surgery clinic, I have put together two maps. Just click on each marker to see the name and telephone number of each clinic or click on the name to go straight to their website. Couldn’t be easier.
They maps don’t include the big 3 laser chain centres, who now have 60 locations. The map shows independent clinician run (usually NHS consultants) clinics rather than commercial chains.

1. London laser eye surgery clinics
2. United Kingdom laser eye surgery clinics (click on London to see details)

Enjoy!

[tags] UK, clinics, laser eye surgery, LASIK, locations, map, UK [/tags]

You can see a below all the GB laser eye clinics that have an actual building and their own laser – what we can call ‘complete’ self-contained laser eye clinics.

Click on each clinic name to visit their website.

If you would like to more easily see where laser eye surgery is happening near you, click here to see laser eye clinics in the UK, or click here to see laser eye clinics in London.

I have excluded a few others that you can find listed elsewhere but which do not have a dedicated clinic building of their own or have their own laser (some surgeons use a mobile laser delivered on a truck as and when they have a need). Clinics in N. Ireland will also be added presently.

Below are actual permanent clinics that have invested in a premises and laser and offer routine ongoing laser eye treatment on a daily basis. If you find this permanence reassuring you can start with these clinics in your search for a laser vision centre for your treatment. The three big laser chains (Optical Express, Ultralase, Optimax) operate 60 out of the 82 clinics listed here.

So there is a clear split between the three large volume chain operators and the independent single clinics.

** The big 3 are owned and managed by business interests and are commercial ventures. They employ clinicians (surgeons and optometrists) and other staff to deliver the laser eye service to customers. They all have a stated goal of expansion to more locations and compete with each other in most locations around the UK.

** The single independent clinics are owned and/or managed by surgeons or optometrists. These are business ventures although can be thought of usually as a committed private practice by an individual or a team of clinicians and without the goal of geographical expansion. They are likely to stay as solo clinics.

Here is Part 2 of the Essential UK Guide to Laser Eye Surgery slideshows. It covers how to read your prescription and know what all the numbers mean.

This is really useful to know for when you call up a clinic to find out if you are suitable for LASIK or PRK laser eye surgery, they will ask you for your prescription. They can also tell you what the maximum prescription treatable limit is, so you will know if you are within the range or not.

You can see it here:

Essential UK Guide to Laser Eye Surgery Part 2 – Reading Your Prescription

[tags]clinic, guide, laser eye surgery, LASIK, London, PRK, UK [/tags]

There are FOUR key points to look at when choosing a clinic:

1. The laser technology
2. The surgeon
3. The clinic
4. The price

Let’s look at these in more detail:

1. Laser technology
The improvements in success rates and safety of laser eye surgery, including LASIK and PRK, have been mainly down to improvements in sophistication of the laser technology. The lasers are dramatically better than they were even a few years ago.
NOTE: not all lasers are made equal, so you MUST look at clinical results to get accurate performance information.

Focus’ data are available on the results page of the Focus Laser Vision clinics website.

99.4% of patients saw 20/20 or better 6 months after Z-LASIK. 100% saw 20/25 or better.

Also note that each clinic makes a claim that they have the best technology, but this of course cannot be true. They can’t ALL have the best laser equipment, as they all have different systems. Focus Laser Vision bought the WaveLight Allegretto system from Germany as it had the best overall FDA clinical results in extensive trials.

2. Surgeon
Equally important for your result and safety is the surgeon who will perform the procedure and assess your suitability for treatment. The most important decision is who NOT to operate on. In the UK you can look for one or more of the following points in your surgeon: 1. NHS Consultant appointment, 2. Fellowship training in refractive surgery and corneal disease, 3. Extensive experience in treating your kind of prescription, 4. Has performed more than 5000 procedures, 5. Works in refractive surgery on a full-time basis or at least two days every week if involved in other areas of ophthalmology (the more time in refractive surgery, the better), 6. Teaching and presenting on refractive surgery skills, vision outcomes and research.

3. Clinic
Look at the support that each clinic will offer to you. Individual independent clinics can usually offer excellent continuity of care so you see the same clinician each time, but may not be as well geographically placed as some of the nationwide chain centres. Ask if you will get your surgeons private phone number after treatment in case of problems or advice being needed. This number is very reassuring for patients.

4. Price
Last of all, look at the price. You want the above three factors to be the best you can get first of all. If you are completely satisfied you have not compromised there, then you can look at price, but ONLY then. High price is not a guarantee of quality, of having the best laser technology, of getting the best surgeon. It may give you these things, but you have to look and make sure for yourself.

In summary, look for yourself and ask the right questions. I have more information of the FOCUS Laser Vision clinics website on this and other related topics.

I got an email this week from a Mr. John Andrews, who was confused about LASIK laser eye surgery pricing.

John wrote:

Having visited your site I am not clear what criteria you used to determine the cost of treatment. What level of myopia do you treat for £295 per eye assuming a thick cornea and no astigmatism?

And here is my reply to John:

Dear Confused

Let me clarify!

There are two pricing models in the UK. One based on prescription and the other a fixed price per treatment type. We base short sighted correction prices on prescription, in the same way that Optical Express does.

Prices for keratome based lasik start at £295 for WAVEFRONT based lasik. This covers up to 1.5D of astigmatism and up to 1D of myopia. Anyone with up to that prescription gets wavefront treatment at that price.

NOTE: You can see the £395 headline price from Optical Express and Optimax is not what you will pay at all when you want modern wavefront LASIK. Those prices are for non-wavefront treatments and you have to pay extra if you want up to date wavefront LASIK. They start at these clinics at £795 per eye.

Our prices are for wavefront based treatment with FDA confirmation that this method outperforms ALL other lasers for custom treatments (see our web site under results.)

We are cheaper than ALL other London based clinics for a range of prescriptions. Check out my blog on this topic with a graph comparison of prices for various prescriptions at various London clinics. (keratome (bladed) wavefront LASIK)

Prices for laser eye surgery treatment in the UK have fallen by up to 80% for correction of short sight. However, tremendous variation between clinics means a difference in price of up to £4,000 ($8,000) for the same glasses prescription.

You can see the press release article on the fall in LASIK laser eye surgery prices here