Implementing immediate sequential bilateral cataract surgery at Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust

Immediate sequential bilateral cataract surgery (ISBCS) was first introduced into NICE guidelines in 2017. In this approach, patients undergo cataract surgery on both eyes on the same day. Although increasingly popular, only 0.5% of all cataract operations nationally are performed using this approach. We redesigned our service to routinely offer ISBCS and are now one of the leading NHS providers of ISBCS in the UK. We audited our cataract operations in 2022 and report our initial experiences with ISBCS here.

We redesigned our cataract service to routinely offer ISBCS on the NHS. We audited all cataract operations performed in calendar year 2022.

We performed 4652 NHS cataract operations including 498 (10.7%) operations on 249 patients using the ISBCS approach. Trainee surgeons performed 32.5% of these cases. There were two intraoperative complications, both during the second eye operation. One was a suspected suprachoroidal haemorrhage and the other was a posterior capsular rupture post lens implantation. Post-operatively there was one case of retinal detachment requiring vitrectomy following uncomplicated ISBCS and five cases of Irvine-Gass syndrome that were managed medically.

From this data, ISBCS does not pose a greater risk to patients in terms of complications. Allowing trainees to operate on ISBCS cases improves the trainee experience. With appropriate pre-operative counselling, patients listed for unilateral surgery can be converted to ISBCS on the day of operation to fully utilise theatre capacity. Patients listed for ISBCS can also be converted to unilateral surgery on the day of operation when surgeons need time to deal with complications safely.