The reason why I went to the Centre for Sight was after watching all the statistics and reports/reviews over the last 10 years the best of the best in the UK is the Centre for Sight. (also one of the more expensive, but hey you only get one pair of eyes!)
I found this forum very helpful, so here is my experience:
About -7 in both eyes, worn glasse since age 10, contacts from age 15, now in my 40s.
Overall the process in my case was:
November 2006 Thursday, 10:00 – 15:00 at the hospital having various eye tests. You cannot drive after the tests as you have your eyes dilated. (I took the train to Gatwick and then a cab to the hospital)
I had provisionally booked the surgery for the next available date and since the tests went well so:
Back again on the following Monday morning, the treatment takes literally 12 minutes. Then you sit and wait for 1 hour in the dark, followed by a vision test and finally taken home in the car by my wife. After getting home I followed their instructions to sleep for 4 hours and spent a pleasant evening watching TV without glasses for the first time.
Next day I could already do email on a laptop, You have to go back for a checkup and I went into the London clinic (again on the train). My eyesight was good enough to drive BUT I personally would advise against it, imagine an airbag going off in your face the day after an eye operation…not a good idea!
After the check (I had 20:20 vision) the rest of the week was spent mainly working from home. They say you can work/fly the next day, but if you can I would advise on taking it easy for the week.
Pretty much the following week things were settling down nicely. You have quite an intensive regime of eye drops, but this gets less and less over 6 week period. The only real pain is having to wear goggles to bed everynight to stop you from rubbing your eyes while asleep.
After 4 weeks back to the clinic again for a checkup, and by now I had 20:15 vision (better than 'normal').
Overall I had a great experience and now 2 months later I still find myself thinking about taking my lens out at night. My vision clarity seems to still be improving and I will be interested to see if I can get to the bottom line of the eye chart on the 3 month checkup. Overall I would heartily recommend the Centre for Sight.