East Anglian eye consultant admits implant mistake

Andrew Steven Ramsay, from Lackford near Bury St Edmunds, appeared yesterday before a Medical Practitioners’ Tribunal. He is currently a consultant ophthalmic surgeon with Anglia Community Eye Service (ACES) who have clinics in Wisbech, Thetford, Fakenham, Whittlesey, March and Peterborough.

At the hearing Ramsay, who was also a consultant at West Suffolk Hospital from 2001 to 2014, admitted fitting the wrong intraocular lens implant to a patient on November 1, 2013 at the private Cambridge Nuffield Hospital. The mistake is described as a ‘never event’ – something that should never happen.

The tribunal allegation continues that he discovered on November 8, 2013 that he had fitted the wrong implant because he relied on biometric data from another patient, but he failed to record this on the patient’s notes.

He is also alleged to have recorded that the patient had had a ‘myopic surprise’ when he knew that was not so; removed the incorrect biometry printout from the patient’s records and failed to notify ‘the matron or other responsible officer’ at the hospital of the mistake.

It continues that on February 14, 2014, during a meeting with the director of Cambridge Nuffield Hospital, he initially failed to ‘volunteer the information’ that a never event had occurred and that he had fitted the wrong lens because he had used the wrong patient’s biometric data.

He has admitted ‘misleading’ and ‘dishonest’ actions by failing to volunteer information in February 2014 that he fitted the wrong lens because he had relied on the wrong patient’s data.

The General Medical Council’s list of practitioners records that Ramsay registered as a doctor on July 30, 1991 and was registered as an ophthalmology specialist on December 11, 2000.

ACES’ website says he won the final year prize at London Hospital Medical College when he qualified and trained in ophthalmology at London’s renown Moorfield’s Eye Hospital before becoming a consultant at Bury St Edmunds and Cambridge in 2001.

It adds: “He is an examiner for the Fellowship exams of the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, has lectured and published internationally, and was clinical sub-dean at the University of Cambridge.”

Companies House lists him as a director of Norwich Eye Clinic Ltd since February 2016.

The hearing is expected to continue until April 13.