National patient safety alert: EyeCee One intraocular lenses

All clinics are in the process of contacting the people affected and will arrange an IOP assessment within the next couple of weeks. The recalled IOLs have been used in around 5% of procedures in the UK in the last four months. So the majority of people who have had cataract surgery over the last four months will be unaffected. Please reassure patients that all clinics are working to contact everyone effected. 

The NHS might arrange for patients to have IOP monitored in primary care optometry and report the results following an agreed clinical protocol, with appropriate funding. Where necessary, optometry practices will be given more information by the cataract service provider making the arrangements. It is currently recommended that any patient with these IOLs who registers an IOP of over 22mmHg should be urgently referred to their local cataract service. Full clinical records must be kept in addition to the clinical findings returned to the cataract service. Each nation’s health system is aware of this alert and is working with providers to arrange care for people affected, this will include people who receive eye care in their own homes. 

We understand that about 51 clinics are affected across the whole of the UK and around 6,000 to 10,000 people may have been fitted with these implants. An MHRA notice to stop implanting the device was issued last week, so the use of this implant has been paused whilst there is an investigation. In Scotland, it is a few hundred patients at two cataract centres. 

People who are monocular and those who have glaucoma are considered at the highest risk.