Hundreds of thousands more NHS patients a year are having cataracts removed in England in a boom driven by private clinics – but funded by taxpayers. Doctors say the trend, which now means nearly 60% of NHS cataract operations are outsourced to private providers – up from 24% five years ago – is piling pressure on already stretched NHS finances and sapping the funds needed for more serious conditions that can lead to blindness. The surgery, a painless procedure to treat blurry vision by replacing the eye’s natural lens with an artificial one, usually takes 10 to 15 minutes and has become increasingly routine.
The Royal College of Ophthalmologists says the number of cataract treatments has jumped by nearly 40% from pre-pandemic levels, meaning an extra 200,000 people a year are having the procedure on the NHS. It claims the jump is down to outsourcing to the private sector. But Ben Burton, the college’s president, says that while the independent sector helped reduce backlogs after the pandemic, it has “continued to expand to a level where there’s less and less benefit and more and more cost”.
The Royal National Institute of Blind People is also concerned that the use of private providers is having a “destabilising effect on NHS eye care services”. It said: “It is also important to take into consideration the unequitable nature of the expansion of the independent sector, which has shown significant regional variation and favoured affluent areas.” NHS spe.
