A NEW £4.3million treatment centre which will help revolutionise eye care at a Suffolk hospital opens its doors to patients for the first time next week.

A NEW £4.3million treatment centre which will help revolutionise eye care at a Suffolk hospital opens its doors to patients for the first time next week.

The new eye treatment centre at the rear of West Suffolk Hospital, Bury St Edmunds, replaces the existing eye department in the main building.

Operations such as cataracts, squint and retinal surgery and corneal grafts will be performed in the new centre, which opens to patients on Monday.

Tony Vivian, consultant opthalmologist at the hospital, which currently performs around 2,400 cataract removal operations every year, said the vast majority of surgery at the new centre would take place on a day case basis.

Mr Vivian said: "The new centre is a fantastic facility. It's clever design and state-of-the-art equipment make it the most innovative eye unit in the country. Our patients will get the highest quality eye care and they will not have to wait so long to get it."

Sophie Pettifer, manager of the new centre, said: "We are very excited and pleased to be moving into the eye treatment centre. It is a much more pleasant and spacious environment and gives us a great opportunity to significantly improve the quality of patient care."