Who is suitable for laser eye surgery? This is a key question, and what the Custom Vision Clinic is all about. It’s about taking the time to get to know people and their vision and every aspect of their eyes because, to achieve accurate outcomes for patients, we have to understand all of those things in detail. The factors that come into play determine the prescription. Sometimes, the prescription might be too large for laser eye surgery. With laser eye surgery, we are removing tissue from the cornea. The structure is only half a millimetre thick, so there’s a limit to how much tissue we can remove. For some patients, we have to look at alternative technologies, and we have those.

For younger patients where their own natural lens inside is either a crystalline lens or clear, we can add technology; we can implant a contact lens custom-made for their prescription. This additive procedure is very accurate and very safe. It’s a really good option. In that scenario, though it often is a look of disappointment on a patient’s face when I say: “Look, your description is too big or your cornea is not strong enough for laser eye surgery.” But they shouldn’t be really disappointed because there is an incredible technology that is as good in terms of its accuracy now. It provides really good quality vision, and hardly any dry effects after implantation of their internal lenses, so really it’s just another tool for those patients where we’ve gone outside of the boundaries for safe and effective laser eye surgery.