Eye surgery can be stressful, but we want your cataract consultation and surgery treatment to be relaxed, easy and safe and here’s some useful information to make it easy and some reassurance about what we do.  

Your cataract consultation

If you’re arriving by car you’ll find us easily at The Westbourne Centre, 53 Church Rd, Birmingham B15 3SJ and you can call the call reception at 0121 456 0880. You can park right outside the door so look out for a building that looks like the one above. And we’re 10 minutes by taxi from both Birmingham New Street and Moor Street train stations if you prefer to come by train. 

We’ll keep you as safe as possible with the new measures we’ve implemented. These include checking your temperature and ours when we arrive at the hospital and we all wear masks. There are plenty of hand sanitisers, you won’t be sitting near anyone else and appointments are spaced out to minimise the number of people in the hospital at any one time.

Mark Wevill, your cataract surgeon will examine your eyes and cataracts after you’ve had high tech scans of your eyes Mark will personally check your vision and your eyes and recommend the best cataract surgery plan and the type of intraocular lens that will be best for you. 

Your cataract removal operation

Your cataract operation is done at the same hospital as your consultation. We don’t do operations on both eyes on the same day. Some surgeons do, but we prefer to confirm that you’re doing well with the first treatment before doing the second cataract removal. 

On the day of your first cataract operation, we’ll tell you all the do’s & don’ts of looking after your eye after surgery. The cataract operation is done with anaesthetic eye drops and no needles are used. The cataract operation usually takes 10 to 15 minutes and isn’t painful.  Some cataracts are removed with a laser and ultrasound, but we found that the laser increased the cost of the surgery and didn’t have any benefits. Scientific studies have confirmed this so we only use ultrasound now. It’s the best, simplest and safest way to do cataract removal surgery. 

We do keyhole microsurgery to soften and remove your cataract with the tiny ultrasound probe. Your new high tech intraocular lens is then folded, gently inserted into your eye and unfolded in the same position as your old lens.

Your cataract treatment aftercare

After your eye surgery you should continue treatment with the eye drops we give you for a month. We’ll arrange some follow up appointments that are convenient for you and give you emergency telephone numbers to call if you’re concerned about anything. By the next day you should see that colours are amazingly bright and your eye should be comfortable. You can start reading and watching TV the next day and we’ll let you know when it’s safe to drive, but you can usually start driving a week after the second cataract operation. We’ll give you more detailed information and instructions on your surgery day.

We look forward to meeting you, restoring your vision and improving your quality of life. And we’ll make it as relaxed, easy and safe as possible.