Help and FAQs
It’s understandable that as you’ve been referred to Newmedica for treatment, that you may have a few questions about us, so here are answers to some of the most frequent.
Top questions
Newmedica was founded in 2007 when a former eyecare patient and a leading consultant came together to transform the patient experience. Today we deliver more than 290,000 private and NHS appointments every year including over 74,000 cataract procedures and 30,000 for patients with sight-threatening conditions such as glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) at our state-of-the-art clinics throughout England.
Our surgical centres are locally owned and led by the renowned consultants who practice there. This means each surgical centre is focused on providing a long-term sustainable service to the local community and patients will receive personalised care and reassurance every step of the way.
We’re on a mission to end avoidable sight loss in every community we serve. Patient care is at the heart of everything we do, guiding every decision we make, under-pinned by a desire to do more to support the NHS.
We’ve been part of the Specsavers Group since 2016. However, we operate as a separate legal entity, with the business run according to our own internal governance structures and in compliance with all regulatory and contractual requirements. Our patient data is not accessible to Specsavers.
We’re proud to be an NHS Choice Provider, working in partnership with the NHS, local GPs and opticians to make sure our communities get the care they need to protect their sight – and to help take some pressure off busy NHS hospitals.
We provide NHS and private funded ophthalmology services, for treatments including cataract surgery, glaucoma management and age-related macular degeneration.
As an NHS patient, you have the legal right to choose which NHS or independent surgical centre, like Newmedica, delivers your care when referred for treatment. That means you can choose a provider based on what’s important to you – short wait times, the quality of care provided, using the best replacement cataract lens or distance to your home. Wherever you’re treated, the cost will be fully funded by the NHS with no cost to you.
No. We don’t pay a referral fee. If a patient is referred to us, it’s because the patient and their optician or GP believed we were the best choice for their care.
Just like an NHS hospital, our services are regularly audited to check that we’re meeting the high standards of care patients expect and need.
As an organisation focused on offering exceptional clinical outcomes, we’re proud to say our patients are less than half as likely to have a complication than the average across the NHS.
Which is why 98% of our patients would recommend us to friends and family.
Different hospitals, both NHS and independent providers like Newmedica, use different types of cataract replacement lenses. Whilst they all do the job, some do it better than others.
Over time, replacement lenses can become cloudy, impacting vision, and needing an additional treatment to correct it. We want to avoid putting our patients through that, so we only use the best quality lenses for our patients.
In fact, the lens we use for our NHS patients is nearly 3 times less likely to become cloudy within 5 years than the standard lenses used by other hospitals. We do this at no extra cost to the NHS.
This means you'll have a better long-term outcome with a lower chance of needing additional treatment in the future.
Which is why 98% of our patients would recommend us to their friends and family.
No. We use a high-quality lens, at no extra charge to you or the NHS, for our NHS patients because we know it provides a better outcome for our patients, while also saving the NHS money in the long-term.
We take every step possible to minimise the chance of a complication, however they can still happen. Where a complication does occur, during or after a procedure, because of the high-quality consultants who work in our surgical centres we’ll usually resolve the complication ourselves. On very rare occasions, where a patient needs additional support, for example a general anaesthetic, we have agreements with local hospitals to provide their care.
We also provide a 24-hour, seven day a week call service for patients who have any concerns after their treatment.
The most important measurement of complications is posterior capsule rupture (PCR), an internationally recognised marker of surgery quality which relates to the most serious surgery complications that might arise. Our most recent audit data for the year to 31 March 2023 (published May 2024) shows an adjusted PCR rate of 0.30%. This compares with an overall adjusted rate of 0.79% across the whole national dataset, implying that the rate of PCR in Newmedica clinics is well under half the NHS average.
We’re able to achieve this exceptional rate because we ensure that our local surgical centres are led by highly qualified consultants, many of whom are specialists in advanced treatments.
It’s normal for the eye to feel gritty, the eyelid to be sticky, some mild discomfort and possibly fluid discharge for a while after cataract surgery. These symptoms will usually clear up after a few days.
One of the team will call you 24 hours after your surgery to see how you’re doing and to answer any questions you have.
However, if you experience increased pain, rapid loss of vision, increased redness or discharge, or flashes of light, black spots (called floaters) or a curtain across your vision, ring the emergency phone number detailed in your appointment letter pack immediately. This number is monitored 24/7 by one of our clinical team who’ll answer your concerns and support you with any further steps.
We want to be as inclusive as we possibly can and our teams pride themselves in offering personalised care for our NHS patients, going the extra mile wherever they can:
- For those patients whose first language is not English, we use reputable, registered healthcare translation services to support conversations. In the last year alone, we invested over £70,000 on delivering this translation service.
- All of our sites are wheelchair accessible, and have wheelchairs on site
- We provide free on-site parking, with clearly marked disabled spaces
- We offer free door-to-door patient transport to and from our clinics for those who need it
- Our theatre beds are designed like dentists’ chairs, so they can be lowered and raised for patients with mobility issues
- We’re trialling hoists at two of our clinics so we can treat more patients unable to get onto a theatre bed unaided
- For nervous patients, we offer to hold their hand, to talk to them, play music or other sounds during surgery to help relax them. Through these actions, as well through local anaesthetic techniques, we can help them to have painless surgery.
We recognise that a small number of patients (less than 1%) need additional support due to severe health conditions (e.g. heart failure, inability to lie flat), learning difficulties, severe anxiety and other health challenges. In these circumstances NHS hospitals, with the additional services they can offer including general anaesthetic, intensive care units and MRI scanners, are the best place for patient safety and for clinical outcomes.
While we want to be open to all, there are certain patients or scenarios where we can’t help:
- Accident and emergency ophthalmology
- Under 18s
- Where on a national cancer screening pathway or if suspected of a cancer diagnosis
- Unable to lie flat
- Needing a general anaesthetic.
In many cases, yes. The post operation follow-up is an important stage to check that treatment was successful and for patients to get updated spectacle prescriptions.
Our records, which detail why post operation follow-ups are needed, are regularly audited, and confirm that we don’t carry out clinically unnecessary follow-ups.
Over two thirds of our post operation follow-ups are carried out where it’s most convenient for patients, in their local optician. In a minority of cases, some patients will need an additional follow-up due to a clinical need, which we’ll do in one of our surgical centres or outpatient clinics.
The NHS sets out data requirements, and providers, including Newmedica, must ensure patient coding is done accurately, reflecting the complexity of care being provided.
Newmedica coding practice is subject to independent, external audit to ensure complete transparency on the costs of procedures we carry out on behalf of the NHS. Our most recent audit, from 2024, showed that we meet all national clinical coding standards and NHS coding guidance.
No. Payments for patient care are standardised by the NHS, which allocates the same fee for each procedure to all providers, whether an independent or NHS hospital.
We’re committed to the NHS for the long term. We provide the capital investment to build and maintain our surgical centres, invest in the training and education of our people, including supporting junior doctors to become future surgeons, and are focused on delivering additional capacity to help the NHS reduce waiting lists.
Most of our consultants work in a local NHS hospital as well as one of our surgical centres. We don’t ask or expect them to give up their position in the NHS.
Like you, we believe passionately in the importance of a strong and healthy NHS. That’s why all of our established surgical centres provide training for junior doctors to learn the skills necessary to become future surgeons. There’s no contract or requirement for these junior doctors to come back to us once they’re qualified – many stay in the NHS.
While some nurses and other clinical staff join us from NHS hospitals, we also train many ourselves and develop our own training programmes, ensuring they meet the same high standards expected in the NHS and supporting them to become fully qualified.
Patient safety is of critical importance to everyone at Newmedica. We have a robust and integrated structure in place that enables us to deliver high quality care, which leads to the exceptional clinical outcomes and positive experience you need and expect from us. We keep the patient voice at the centre of care by regularly listening to feedback, with learnings shared to ensure we're continuously improving the care we provide. Each of our surgical centres close for a day each month so that teams can come together for shared training and learning, and to hear from patients on their experiences.