Home / Ophthalmology & Oculoplastics
For Ophthalmologists & Oculoplastic Surgeons
Cataract is the most litigated subspecialty in NHS ophthalmology, wrong IOL selection is a Never Event, and failure to warn keeps appearing as a primary cause. Cleritas runs the UK's recurring half-day ophthalmology medico-legal CPD programme, and builds consent systems for private cataract and oculoplastic practice.
Consent by procedure
Delicate anatomy, high expectations and Montgomery's patient-centred test. Consent that holds, documented the way an expert witness reads it.
Oculoplastic
Dry eye, asymmetry, lagophthalmos and the rare but serious risks of eyelid surgery, and the record that defends them.
Read the guide →Ophthalmic
The material risks, and how lens choice engages the McCulloch duty to discuss reasonable alternatives.
Read the guide →Cross-sector
When aesthetic filler threatens sight: the ophthalmic emergency every injector and eye clinic should be ready for.
Read the guide →The Litigation Picture
Failure to Warn
Across the cataract claims record, failure to warn recurs as a primary cause. Refractive surprise is the classic pattern: a technically flawless operation, a patient who expected spectacle independence, and a consent form that never discussed the difference.
McCulloch v Forth Valley [2023] sharpened the burden further. It is no longer enough to warn about the procedure you performed, you must be able to show which reasonable alternatives you considered, offered and ruled out, and why. In lens selection that means monofocal versus toric versus multifocal, target refraction, and the option of no surgery at all. If your notes do not record that reasoning, the law treats the conversation as if it never happened.
Biometry checks prevent the wrong IOL going in. Only documentation proves the right conversation happened before it did.
"A perfect phaco with an undiscussed refractive outcome is not a good result. It is a claim with a two-year fuse."THE REFRACTIVE-SURPRISE PATTERN
"Oculoplastics is where surgery meets aesthetics, and where surgical consent inherits the expectation problems of the most complaint-dense sector in private practice."WHY OCULOPLASTICS NEEDS ITS OWN CONSENT THINKING
Oculoplastics
Blepharoplasty and ptosis disputes rarely turn on technique. They turn on the gap between what the patient pictured and what the consent discussion recorded: asymmetry, scarring, lagophthalmos, the possibility of revision, the option of doing nothing. Aesthetic expectations meeting surgical outcomes is the most predictable consent failure in the specialty, and the most preventable.
Cleritas sits across both worlds. We bring aesthetic-sector consent discipline, expectation management, cooling-off, photographic records, to oculoplastic and cataract private practice, as complete consent systems built for how you actually consult.
Private-practice consent systems →The CPD Programme
No regular dedicated ophthalmology medico-legal conference currently exists in the UK. Cleritas is building one: a recurring half-day programme with solicitor and expert-witness faculty, case-based and specific to the claims ophthalmologists actually face.
Solicitor faculty walk through real cataract and oculoplastic claims, how failure-to-warn allegations are constructed, and where the defence collapsed or held.
What an expert witness looks for in a consent record, how McCulloch's alternatives burden is assessed in practice, and what "good notes" means when read three years later in a witness statement.
Structured approaches to lens-choice discussions, refractive-outcome expectation setting and oculoplastic consent, usable in your next list, NHS or private.
Programme faculty includes Professor Irfan Jeeva: Medicolegal Expert Witness, Consultant Ophthalmologist and Oculoplastic Surgeon.
Recurring half-day sessions with solicitor and expert-witness faculty. Founding delegates get first access to dates.
Join the waitlist →Done-for-you consent suites for private cataract and oculoplastic work, lens-choice documentation, alternatives records, expectation-setting frameworks.
See what's included →Your current private-practice consent documentation scored against Montgomery, McCulloch and GMC guidance, with a written report.
Book an audit →Common Questions
Accreditation applications are in progress. We will not claim accreditation before it is granted, founding delegates will be told the exact status before any booking is confirmed, and every session is built to CPD documentation standards regardless.
Both. The claims data is drawn from the NHS Resolution record because that is where the numbers are, but the consent principles apply identically in private practice, where you carry the documentation burden personally, without a trust's legal team behind you.
Arguably more so. Oculoplastic consent disputes combine surgical risk with aesthetic expectations, the hardest consent conversation in the specialty. The programme and our consent systems treat blepharoplasty and ptosis work as a core focus, not an afterthought.
The Medicolegal Readiness Score
A five-minute diagnostic scored across the five pillars of defensibility, consent, records, consultation, complaints and regulation. Free, private, and uncomfortably precise.
Take the Readiness Score →
Founding Delegates
Join the waitlist for first access to programme dates, founding-delegate pricing and the private-practice consent system pilot. Places are limited because every cohort is clinician-reviewed.