Eye surgeon claims that new treatment centre is a threat to NHS

Doctors at the Oxford Eye Hospital say their service is threatened by government plans to farm out cataract operations to a diagnostic and treatment centre run by a private foreign company.

John Elston, a consultant surgeon at the hospital, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the private scheme was a “serious threat.”

“The cataract work subsidises the work in chronic eye disease so it could well mean that we would lose numbers of our trainees, and if we lose staff, then we lose the ability to offer the full range of services,” he said. “You need a critical mass to attract the referrals and to provide …