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Safety and Risks

Laser eye surgery is amongst the simplest of surgical treatments available anywhere. It is now the most popular form of elective procedure in the world with more than twenty million treatments carried out so far, over half a million in Britain alone. In fact, you may know someone who has been enjoying the benefits for some time from this life-changing transformation. In 1991, Ultralase were the first to perform laser eye surgery in the UK, and have advanced every year ever since. The most recent example of how Ultralase continues to advance is our move towards totally blade-free vision correction treatment. All Ultralase LASIK laser eye surgery treatments now benefit from Intralase®, which uses a very fine laser instead of a blade. This has been clinically proven throughout the world to be safer and more accurate, and to succeed in better treatment outcomes than blade-assisted treatment. Ultralase is the ONLY national UK provider who can guarantee not to use blades during vision correction treatment. Today, we can help around nine out of every ten people who contact us. See if you may be suitable for vision correction.

Safety for you

It is also one of the safest of vision correction treatments. And, at Ultralase, we work harder to ensure that your outcome, your safety and your care are our top priorities. We are so confident of our skills in these areas, that we are the only laser eye surgery provider in Europe to offer a unique Lifetime Care Guarantee as a promise to help you get the most out of your treatment with us.

Ask any laser eye surgeon and they will tell you that all surgical procedures carry a risk of a complication occurring, and laser eye surgery is no different. What area of life is totally risk-free? In fact, there is evidence to suggest that you stand a higher risk of suffering an infection from your contact lens solution than from laser eye surgery with Ultralase.

Ask yourself another question, who would know best the seriousness of the risk? Who would know the inside track? Well, just ask any of our staff. They should know how minimal the risk is. Ask them and you will find out that our staff, which includes our laser eye surgeons, are forty times more likely to have had vision correction than the UK population at large. Forty times more. Now, if risk were a major factor, don't you think these people would know? And, what do you think they would do about it, if it were a problem?

There are very few areas of life where you would find more thorough checking procedures, more stringent safety protocols or more rigorous ongoing quality assurance than those in place at Ultralase. So, whilst the risk of encountering a complication with your treatment may not exactly be zero, everything possible is geared to keeping any risk as small as possible, a focus set by professionals here whose sole job it is to work on reducing that small risk still further.

As part of Ultracare™, here are some examples of how Ultralase work to make safety second nature to the way in which we do things:

• The tests at your eye surgery consultation are designed to provide our specialists with a great deal of diagnostic data so you get the best advice on the safest, most effective and most appropriate vision correction treatment for your unique eyes.
• The Ultralase team make these decisions from almost twenty years of experience, and from contributing to the most up-to-date published data from around the world so you know you have all that expertise helping your eyes see better, unaided.
• Your vision correction treatment is achieved using the most modern and sophisticated Bausch & Lomb 217z100 laser equipment, surpassing the rigorous standards set by authorities worldwide, even those of the internationally-respected United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA), so you can rest assured at its quality.
• The results of all vision correction treatments are recorded in the Ultracare™ process after treatment day. This information forms part of a quality control process analysing over one million individual data items every year. These results are used to produce individual customised records for each Ultralase surgeon four times a year so we can at least maintain the accuracy and effectiveness of treatment, all with the aim of continually improving for your benefit.
• Each of our laser eye surgeons is accredited against rigorous recruitment requirements so that your eyes can be seen to by the very best.
• Each Ultralase vision correction clinic is subject to regular inspections, both by internal company specialists and also by external agencies such as the Healthcare Commission. Clinic management use the feedback from these to ensure that laser eye surgery procedures comply with established best practice and that the quality of service and care in the clinic meets the highest standards.
• Results of our laser eye surgeons are verified by an external, independent watchdog to ensure that what we are saying is accurate
• The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) sets out some very strict guidelines for laser eye surgery providers. Ultralase is consistent with the procedural guidelines, and exceeds the efficacy provisions in respect of accuracy of procedure and quality of vision.

First few days post-treatment

Despite our best efforts, and stemming from our promise of care to you, we must still advise you that any treatment carried out on the body will stimulate the natural healing process, and the common temporary effects that arise from this. These include slight dryness, sensitivity to bright lights, haze around lights and a gritty feeling not unlike that experienced with an old contact lens. These are minor and quick to pass for most patients. Ultralase supply lubricating eye drops in your aftercare pack and advise patients to use these, plus to wear tinted spectacles on the day of surgery to help relieve any discomfort caused by these effects. At your FREE eye surgery consultation, your specialist will give you a customised summary of what the initial post-operative period is likely to be for you.

In the first days following LASIK laser eye surgery, vision improves to near-normal levels but is still prone to some fluctuation due to the healing process. The eyes are separate organs and they will heal independently of each other. The healing process means that there is a little more water than usual in the cornea, and that is what causes a little mistiness and haze around lights in the short term, particularly at night. Sometimes things might appear to be in soft focus and there may be the odd "bad eye day" where your vision in one or both eyes is not as good as you remember from the day before. As healing moves on, the body absorbs this excess water and the symptoms disappear. LASEK laser eye surgery patients may experience a dip in their vision and a little discomfort on the 3rd or 4th day. This is a normal part of the healing process and resolves quickly. Any initial healing symptoms soon pass as the healing process moves on, and serve to show that it's important not to judge the outcome as final too soon.

In the early days, it is important not to rub your eyes, as there is a possibility that this may move the flap out of alignment. If this does occur, the outlook is good so there is no need to panic. Just contact Ultralase immediately. We support you with a 24-hour emergency phone number that you can call in the rare event that this or any other complication may occur. You may need to return to the treatment room for your surgeon to re-align the flap, and it will mean starting the drop regime from the beginning again, but the situation can easily be rectified.

Just as individuals don't all have the same height, shoe size or hair colour, rates of healing vary as well. In some cases, the body over or under-heals so that an enhancement of the treatment is required to achieve your objective. Such is the confidence in the quality of the treatment in Ultralase vision correction clinics, the Ultralase Lifetime Care Guarantee means that as long as a further treatment is safe and in your interest, it will be offered to you at no extra charge. Ultralase's independently verified statistics show that only around 3 to 4% of patients require an enhancement of their treatment and so you can rest assured that this will all be done at our expense to get your eyes to the best they can be.

Rare complications

A post-operative infection is an extremely rare event, requiring immediate action, but it also has a very good chance of success. Infections requiring more treatment are much rarer, around 1 in 10,000. For comparison, the incidence of similar infections in contact lens wearers is 1 in 3,000. Since prompt action is required in order to effectively and safely manage an infection, Ultralase has a 24-hour on-call service for patients to report any suspicious symptoms.

In the past, any discussion of complications surrounding LASIK laser eye surgery has centred on the creation of the LASIK flap. Rarely, the creation of the flap is less than perfect, requiring that the surgeon postpone the treatment and the patient return to spectacle or contact lens wear for around 3 months until the eye heals fully enough for the creation of another flap. In the vast majority of cases, your vision is not affected at all by this. However, the arrival of the IntraLase® all-laser method for LASIK has revolutionised safety in laser eye surgery such that flap complications, although rare before, are around 7 times rarer with IntraLase® at 1 in 4,000. Even with these rare cases, the majority still obtain an excellent result at outcome.

All Ultralase vision correction treatments are achieved by a highly qualified, skilled and experienced surgical team, using equipment of increasing sophistication. The most comprehensive outcomes analysis process in the industry ensures that our laser eye surgeons are given all the information they need to continue to strive for perfect outcomes. We believe we offer some of the best safety and care standards in the UK. Others agree. Dr Ashok Kumar MP, speaking in the House of Commons on Feb 4th 2004, observed that:

"While researching the subject, I have become aware that there are those who exemplify the best practice. Ultralase, one of the larger independent healthcare providers in the laser eye surgery sector, operates to standards which appear to be more severe than those required at the statutory level at present."

It may be a sad fact of life that it's not possible to avoid all risk completely, but we hope we have reassured you that Ultralase, through our focus on our unique Ultracare™ approach, works hard and methodically to reduce risk to as close to zero as possible.

We hope we can meet soon. Your journey to see if you are suitable for laser eye surgery, or any of our other vision correction treatments, begins with you simply booking a FREE eye surgery consultation, we will take care of the rest - and you. Contact us now.