Optical Express

PLEASE BE WARNED IF YOU SUFFER FROM DRY EYES. Optical Express - BLUEWATER. Had a complete disaster. My friend previously had surgery here. She was happy with surgery but didn't think customer service was up to scratch but I decided to give it a go. From first impressions, customer service was pretty awful. Staff were like robots, just reading a script. No personal service whatsoever. Next I met the optometrist. Now I'm aware I suffer from quite severe dry eyes and have done so for years. I wanted to be sure the surgery would be suitable for me. I made sure I asked about the dry eyes part but just literally got, "it'll be fine". I wasn't happy with the brief response so prodded a bit more and was just told that as I already had dry eyes, I'd have them still after, which wasn't of course a huge revelation to me. So I asked one last thing, if the dry eyes would get worse, she said no, it'd be fine. So surgery was booked for February this year, payment made. First disappointment, surgery cancelled due to surgeon falling ill which is fair enough. Surgery was rearranged. I went to meet the surgeon, Mr Wayne Crewe-Brown, just before the surgery. This was like an hour before. The first thing I said to him was about my dry eyes concern. The man was shocked that I was sitting actually there and had got that far. I found out then that dry eyes is a common side effect of laser eye surgery which I was NEVER told. You would've thought that would've been pretty important info for me. Then the surgeon went onto explain "what if", worse case scenario which I was horrified to hear. I can't believe none of this info was presented to me til an HOUR before surgery. It was clearly a mutual agreement that Mr Wayne Crewe-Brown & myself thought that it just wasn't worth the risk for me to go ahead as I was in a vulnerable category and had I known all this info before, I would never have gone ahead. So I left hugely upset and disappointed. I'd like to stress at this point that I couldn't fault Mr Wayne Crewe-Brown. He was completely honest and frank with me and offered me his professional opinion, which I truly value as I know he is a man with experience in the field. He was great. So that was it basically. Just to rub more salt into the wounds, I made an official complaint to their Head Office immediately after in February. I was told I’d get a full response within 10 days. It is now nearly 2 months later and still nothing. I am SO disgusted with the whole service, it’s so unprofessional. I just want to say, especially if you suffer from dry eyes or have any other major pre-surgery concerns, don’t take it for granted they’ll give you all the information you’ll need. I actually prompted the woman to get more info but still got nothing. I’ve learnt at the end of the day, you get what you pay for. Also if it matters to you that you get people that help you feel at ease about your surgery and treat you as an individual, this is not the place. Had I also known beforehand that respectable places like Moorfields Eye Hospital carry out laser eye surgery, I would’ve gone to them. If Optical Express can EVER be bothered to respond to my complaint, I will post back here, but don’t hold your breath. Overall - the WORST customer experience of my life and even more so disturbing that these people seem to forget that these were my EYES they were dealing with and they didn't seem to care less that they could’ve risked damaging my eyes / vision indefinitely. ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED.

It seems that always everyone is happy with their procedure, of which, i am one of. But it seems to me that you always read about the people have the procedure completed, but this goes out the forgotten ones: the people who take care of you, check that everything is going ok and that you are healing. I had my operation at eh Bristol clinic, but my inital consultation and continuing after care is at the Cardiff branch. All of the staff here are fantasic, and I wish to thank them for all that have done so far, and into the futre. Good job well done Cardiff!!!!

Had Lasik at 11.15 this morning at the Newcastle clinic, and the results are AWESOME! I can see for miles - so impressed. My prescription was -2.5 left eye and -1.75 right eye. The experience itself was quite scary and a bit uncomfortable but not painful at all. It was all a bit impersonal though. Was waiting half and hour before I saw the surgeon for about 2mins before surgery when he checked my eyes. Then I had to wait about 20 more minutes til I was ushered in for treatment. There just wasn't much interaction or reassurance going on, and it did feel like I was on a production line of some sorts, but I cannot argue with the results at all. Just hoping the healing goes well!

Had lasik wavefront in January 07. Prescription before treatment was -2.5 in both eyes. Prescription after treatment is -1. Back to wearing glasses again. Considering re-treatment/enhancement procedure at end of summer. O Express have offered to do this free of charge. Nervous about going through process again incase I end up worse off!!! Has anyone gone through re treatment?

I had surgery on 8 July 2006 (1 year ago) at Shaftesbury clinic with surgeon Osama Giledi. I had the wavefront scan and wavefront guided lasers. Previously I'd been about -2 on both eyes with astygmatism. My eyesight is now perfect and has been for about 10 months. I do feel as if my eyes are very dry quite often, but that could just be because London air is generally quite polluted. I don't require eye drops, although use them maybe once every 2-3 weeks. My eyes do sometimes feel as if they're weaker/thinner than they were previously, but I guess maybe they are... this causes no problems though. My experience of surgery was a little traumatic. During all my pre-surgery tests I specifically asked whether I was suitable for LASIK. I was assured that I was a "perfect candidate". However when I turned up on the day the surgeon looked at the same test results and said I was not suitable for LASIK because my corneas were uneven thicknesses. So he gave me 30 minutes to decide whether to do LASEK or to go home. I was entitled to a full refund if I said no. Although I was not actively pressured, I did feel a little pressured by staff coming to ask if I wanted to go ahead every 5 minutes. And I felt as if I did not have enough information to make an informed decision about LASEK, as I had spent the previous 2 months reading up about LASIK. I decided to go ahead. The next 4-5 days I had very sore eyes, and very blurry eyesight. I was forced to take more days off work than I had planned, which was annoying and again if I had been told early on that I was only suitable for LASEK I may have decided not to do it. For about 2 weeks after surgery my eyes were very tired and very dry, and I had less than perfect vision. I had double or triple vision for about 3 weeks in total, which was somewhat concerning. After about a month the double vision had subsided, but for the next month or so I still had problems focussing on sharp brightness contrasts, e.g. computer screen or train timetable messages (anything with LEDs was a problem). About 2 or so months after surgery I felt as if my eyesight was good, and it felt stable. It has been so ever since. Optical Express's test of your eyesight prescription post surgery is not overly flash - I got told I had 20/12 vision (i.e. better than 20/20) but I guessed some of the letters on the board as I had done the test a number of times during the whole process. Surgery itself was not too bad - having my eyes held open for about 2-3 minutes each eye was a little uncomfortable but not too bad. The surgeon did have to re-do one eye, which was a little concerning, and a bit more painful. Was it worth doing - yes. Could it have gone better - probably. Do I recommend Optical Express - yes, they were capable, but not perfect. I also checked out the Ultralase offices, which seemed almost identical in terms of professionalism and technology as Optical Express. I chose Optical Express because they were about £400 cheaper (taking into account the discounts I could get from either), and the office was more convenient for me. Hope that's useful.

I had LASIK surgery on 23rd June at Bluewater. My prescription was -2.00 and -2.25 with slight astigmatism. I opted for both wavefront and intralase as I was very nervous about the creation of the flap. My appointment was at 3pm, but there was a considerable wait and I understand now why they tell you to allow 2 - 3 hours! I actually went in for the procedure at 4.45pm. However this would be my only criticism. The staff were helpful and reassuring, as was the surgeon. I was absolutely terrified, however I had made it a lot worse than it actually was. The whole thing took about 15-20 minutes and as soon as I sat up, I could tell my vision had improved. I did not find the intralase painful or uncomfortable. Although I did find it difficult to focus on the red flashing light for the actual laser treatment. However it was all soon over and I went to the recovery room. After about 30 mins the surgeon checked my eyes and gave me the ok to go home. My friend was driving me and we had at least an hour drive ahead of us. As the effect of the anaesthetic drops wore off my eyes becames quite uncomfortable, so the only advice I would give anyone would be to take some pain killers with you and take them afterwards before the anaesthetic wears off. I went home and off to bed with the attractive goggles on and applied drops as per instructions. In the morning I woke to perfect eyesight and was cleared to drive that morning at my follow up appointment. It's now a week since and it is fantastic. No lenses or glasses to fiddle about with and perfect vision. I would recommend this treatment to anyone able to have it.

Great service, achieved great eye sight. Very easy process. I was recommended by my sister Nicola Black who also had surgery. Only thing is she did not get £50 for recommending me.

I didn't have surgery even though they'd done all the assessments, found my suitable, and I wanted it. They required a sign-off letter from my detached-retina surgeon, which turned out to be hard to obtain as I'd never been signed off 11 years previously (hospital admin. mix-up). I was examined again by the hospital where I'd initially had the retinal surgery and was provided a letter which, understandably, was along the lines of "no problems but we can't be responsible for someone else's surgery". I passed this letter on to Optical Express and waited with bated breath. Despite my phone chase-ups they never came back to me. I'd apparently ceased to exist. I've subsequently tried Ultralase (currently booked for surgery) which is more expensive but they couldn't understand why I'd not been examined by Optical Express's surgeon, with a decision to proceed (or not) based on his technical expertise. Also pretty unhappy that they were and still are advertising surgery from £395/eye, which would only be the case if the correction was trivial/unnecessary. My wife, by contrast, did have the Optical Express surgery - cost approx. £2,300 - and is very happy with the results, two years on.

I had surgery 10 days ago. At my initial consultation I was advised that due to my astigmatism and the number of anomalies in my cornea that wavefront would be the best option for me - as this would correct my vision to better than with my glasses on - unfortunately this hasn't happened. My vision has improved, but not to the expected levels. I still have a slight prescription in both eyes & although my vision is now within the legal range to drive without glasses I feel disappointed. At my 1 week post op on Saturday my optometrist confirmed that the results weren't as good as anticipated & I may need enhancement surgery in 6 months time. I would advise you think extremely hard before making such an expensive decision.

I had surgery at Cribbs Causeway on 04/11/08 and all my consultations and post-ops have been at Bournemouth. The Bournemouth staff have been excellent, very helpful and informative. I was very disappointed with Cribbs Causeway as we (all the patients) were basically sat in the waiting room for 2 hours with no-one telling us what was going on. The actual surgery took about 7 minutes and was easy and painless. As we were about to have a major operation on our eyes and had paid alot of money for the surgery, i would have liked the staff to keep us informed. As for my eyes - The left eye was absolutely perfect the next day and still is 2 weeks later. The right eye is still slightly blurred. My optician says its nothing to worry about and it will be perfect vision soon but as each day goes by with no improvement I have my doubts. I would give Bournemouth 5 out of 5 and Cribbs Causeway 1 out of 5. I will update my comments in a few weeks when I hope and pray that i can report that both eyes are perfect!