A NORTH-EAST eye specialist has welcomed a move to make a new treatment for a condition potentially causing blindness available on the NHS.

James Talks, a consultant ophthalmologist at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, in Newcastle, said he was "very pleased" at the decision by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) to approve the use of Eylea, a new treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration, known as wAMD.

Nice's endorsement of this new drug should allow hospital consultants to prescribe it to patients on the NHS.

Mr Talks said: "The benefit of Eylea is that it is given less frequently than the current treatment, which should hopefully make it easier for patients and their relatives to make their appointments and for the hospital to provide the treatment in the best possible way and as a result more patients will have better vision."

Wet age-related macular degeneration is the most common cause of blindness in the Western world, with predictions that there will be more than 450,000 people with the condition in the UK by 2015.