A surgeon has praised his clinic after it carried out its 3,000th cataract procedure.

Norfolk Surgical and Diagnostic Centres' (NSDC) cataract clinic at St Stephens Gate Medical Practice, Wessex Street, Norwich, has reached the milestone on Thursday. The clinic opened in March 2011.

Mr Sivanandy Nagendran, lead opthalmic surgeon at the clinic, said: 'NSDC are proud to offer a first-class service to the local population and restore sight loss caused by cataracts.'

NSDC, which is a multi-specialty community provider for a range of procedures, launched its first cataract clinic in King's Lynn in 1996.

At the time NSDC was the first cataract community provider in the country to offer local NHS patients choice on where to have their procedure.

Hospital waiting times for cataract procedures were then sometimes up to two years from referral, but waiting times at both NSDC's clinics are merely a few weeks.

Mr Nagendran said: 'The St Stephens Gate clinic helps to relieve some of the pressure on our local hospitals.'

He said that patients often commented on the short waiting times plus being able to choose the time and date of their appointments.

There are more than 300,000 cataracts procedures performed in the UK each year.

NSDC is a multi-specialty community provider for an increasing range of procedures to NHS patients from specialist clinicians.

Over the last year more than 6,000 procedures have been carried out at NSDC's four sites.

Surgeries range from hernia repairs to endoscopies.

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