NORTH-EAST lawyers have reported a surge in the number of claims for compensation over laser eye surgery which has gone wrong.

John Hall, a solicitor with medical negligence specialists Tilly Bailey and Irvine, of Hartlepool, works for one of several firms which have seen a rise in the number of claims over laser eye surgery.

They include a female client who found that the vision in one of her eyes had deteriorated following laser surgery.

She also complained that surgery was attempted on her other eye, despite it having the muscular condition "lazy eye" which could not respond to laser surgery.

Said Mr Hall: "People often think that the complication rate is one in 1,000 cases, when we know that at least one in ten cases requires further corrective surgery because of surgical errors or uneven healing."

A survey of other North-East medical negligence solicitors found that three other firms had been approached by laser eye surgery patients.

They included Armstrong Foulkes, in Middlesbrough, Peter Maughan and Company, in Gateshead, and the national chain of Irwin Mitchell, which has an office in Newcastle.

Mr Hall, who is head of clinical negligence at the law firm, said he had heard of serious complications arising in one out of every 1,000 cases, including scarring of the cornea or ectasia, weakening of the cornea so that the anterior chamber of the eye bulges forwards.

The solicitor said laser eye surgery had become commonplace, with more than 100,000 being treated in the UK last year alone.

In May, the medical journal, Ophthalmology, said that the failure rate for laser eye surgery was one in ten, not the one in 100 that many clinics claimed.

Peter Foulkes, a partner in the Middlesbrough firm Armstrong Foulkes, confirmed that it had recently taken on a client who claimed her sight had been damaged after laser eye surgery.

But despite the claim, Mr Foulkes said most laser eye surgery clients seemed to be happy with the outcome.

"I had my eyes done by Optimax and I was very pleased with the results," he said.

Optimax, one of the biggest laser eye surgery providers, says on its website: "No surgical procedure is 100 per cent risk free and you should be aware of potential problems.

"Serious complications are rare but do happen in all laser surgery establishments throughout the world."