From blank to finished lens, OT has had a peek behind the scenes to discover how contact lenses are made at the only UK hospital with an in-house contact lens manufacturing laboratory.
Shreeti Lakhani, a consultant optometrist with the contact lens service at Moorfields Eye Hospital, shared that the service offers around 11,000 contact lens appointments per year.
“The patients we see are patients who have a medical need for contact lenses,” she said.
“We have a contact lens manufacturing lab that runs alongside the contact lens service,” Lakhani added.
Moorfields Eye Hospital head of contact lens manufacturing, Shanil Patel, highlighted that the lab is the only UK manufacturer of the BostonSight scleral lenses, as well as being the only in-house contact lens manufacturing laboratory based within a UK hospital.
“There is so much that is special about the Moorfields contact lens lab,” he said.
The lab manufactures corneal rigid gas permeable lenses, scleral lenses and impression lenses.
“That is a mould of the patient’s eye. We can then use 3D software to create a front and a back surface,” Patel explained.
Lakhani highlighted that having the ability to modify lenses through the in-house lab helps the contact lens service to provide individualised care.
“Making all of these modifications is really helpful for the cohort of patients that we have. It has really revolutionised patient care,” she said.
Lakhani added that optometrists work closely with staff within the contact lens manufacturing laboratory.
“All of the contact lens lab staff are really knowledgeable in contact lens manufacture. Generally, in optometry practices you are working with soft contact lenses – this expertise is becoming more and more niche,” she said.
“To have, on-site, a team of people who have got this knowledge is fantastic,” Lakhani emphasised.
To find out more about the manufacturing process, watch the full video above. Practitioners who are interested in finding out more information about the Moorfields Eye Hospital contact lens service can get in touch by email.
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Nicholas Rumney22 February 2026
Fantastic to read about this flagship department that is optometry led and vital to back up the clever innovative and life restoring corneal surgery. Without medically necessary contact lenses so much corneal surgery is ultimately academic.
Tragic then that the understanding at ICB level provincially is such that there is NOW NO service at all for the five counties BBR Optometry covered under a contract to provide HES level medical CL until recently. As far as we know know BMEC Birmingham is still not taking new referrals, there is no service in Herefordshire, Worcestershire or Shropshire and there appears nothing in Powys and Gwent. Gloucestershire hit and miss.
This a right and proper discipline for optometry and dispensing optics with an appropriate equipment and skill set to fit all sorts of lenses: kconic, scleral, bandage…. Few provincial hospital ophthalmology departments can deliver.
Shame
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