08 September 2021
During a routine inspection
Optimax Laser Eye Clinics - London is operated by Optimax Clinics Limited. The service was established in 1991. It is an independent private service in the London borough of Camden. The service provides refractive (laser) eye surgery for patients over the age of 18. The service receives patients from mostly London and the surrounding area.
The service provides refractive eye surgery only (LASIK; laser-assisted in-situ keratomileusis, LASEK; laser-assisted sub-epithelial keratectomy, or TESA; transepithelial surface ablation). If patients required further care or surgery using anaesthesia or sedation, for example, lens replacement surgery, patients were referred for private surgery to another site managed by the same provider. If patients have lens surgery in another branch, the London location provided pre-, and post-operative care. In 2020 the service performed 1591 refractive eye surgery procedures.
All patients are self-referring and paying for their refractive (laser) eye surgery themselves. Surgery days are variable and are booked according to demand. There are no overnight facilities with opening times from 8am to 6pm Monday to Saturday, with occasional opening on Sunday, as required by demand of the patients.
The clinic operates from the first two floors of a three-storey building. The ground floor has a reception area, main waiting room, topography room, laser room and two consultation rooms. On the first floor, there is a staff changing room, reception waiting area, managers' office, storeroom, laser preparation and treatment room, recovery room, and doctors’ consultation room.
The service has not been subject to any external review or investigation by the CQC at any time during the 12 months before the inspection. There had been one never event in the preceding 12 months. Never events are serious, largely preventable patient safety incidents, which should not occur if the available preventative measures have been put into place by healthcare providers. At the time of the inspection, the incident was still being investigated by the provider.
The registered manager has been in the post since August 2021.
Our previous inspection of the service took place in December 2017. In 2017, we did not have a legal duty to rate refractive eye surgery services when they were provided as a single speciality service.
The team that inspected the service comprised a CQC inspector and a specialist advisor with expertise in clinical governance and service management. The inspection team was overseen by Nicola Wise, Head of Hospital Inspection.
To get to the heart of patients’ experiences of care and treatment, we ask the same five questions of all services: are they safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well-led? Where we have a legal duty to do so, we rate services’ performance against each key question as outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.
You can find information about how we carry out our inspections on our website: https://www.cqc.org.uk/what-we-do/how-we-do-our-job/what-we-do-inspection.