Yes. I think there is no harm in having 2 or even 3 consultations when it comes to deciding whom to entrust your eye-care to. Even if you have already more or less ‘made up your mind’ who and where to have your treatment (because of a personal recommendation for example) you owe it to yourself to see what other providers have to say before you commit. Occasionally other options may crop in these consultations and or other approaches. I frequently come across patients who have been given conflicting advice – by two different providers, in such cases it would do no harm to consult with an individual surgeon on a one to one basis to try and figure it out

Both are important, but one is essential! What many people may not ultimately realise, is that whilst an organisation is able to provide administration, technology and governance support to surgeons, in the end it is the surgeon, as an individual who performs your consultation and carries out the procedure will play the biggest role in your outcome. It is therefore important to select the organisation AND the surgeon that you feel will deliver the very best prospect for a successful outcome for your cataract or vision correction treatment. So please do your research on the organisation but also on the surgeon. I always recommend that prospective patients should personally discuss their case with the surgeon who will do their treatment. Note – this is not always possible in many high street chains as often times the surgeons working for such organisation’s can be itinerant.

This is not an uncommon position!! – I frequently find patients end up in this sort of position after having gone to 3 or 4 different providers and ended up with differing opinions on what's best for them. Allow me to explain, there is no ‘textbook’ that can be followed, individual surgeons base their decisions on the basis of their own knowledge, skills, experience and previous outcomes. It may even be the case that in a way there could well be two or even three different ways to achieve the goals that you have set. This then is a case of seeking a master communicator who can help you disentangle what at first may seem like conflicting or even contradictory advice. This is an area where I have a great deal of experience and I would personally welcome the challenge of discussing with you on a one to one basis your conundrum, in the hope of being able to resolve it for you. What's the worst that could happen?? – you get another opinion

It would be great if there was, but as of Autumn 2020 – there is no universally acknowledged resource that patients can tap into for such information. Efforts are being made to come up with some meaningful comparisons in the work of hospitals, clinics and individual surgeons, but this has quite some way to go before it is useful. I for one look forwards to having fully independent, verifiable, credible audited outcomes for different procedures across the whole country, but this does seem a very long way off at the moment. In the meantime please review my own outcomes using standardised data collection methods and data that is independently captured and collated, with outcomes with the major accepted outcome parameters, it’s the best we can do for the time being.