England’s first artificial cornea transplant hailed a success
A 91-year-old man has become the first person in England to be fitted with a ground-breaking artificial cornea.
Cecil ‘John’ Farley, 91, said his sight was now improving thanks to the procedure, which he underwent after 15 years of suffering from problems with his eyes.
The cornea is the clear outer layer at the front of the eyeball – and is described by the NHS as the “window to the eye”.
A person can suffer from vision problems and pain if the thin transparent covering is damaged by disease or injury – with those affected often left facing a long wait for a human transplant.
However, it is hoped that the artificial device, called EndoArt, will slash waiting times, ease pressure on the NHS and eliminate the risk of the human body rejecting corneas received from an organ donor.
Mr Farley, from Chobham in Surrey, said he was overjoyed by the transplant – in his right eye – because it meant he could continue to see his 83-year-old wife Elizabeth.
He said: “I can still see my wife after 63 years of marriage, we can just carry on as normal and live life as fully as we can.
“It makes your life fuller when your eyes work properly – you don’t realise how debilitating it is until it happens to you.”
Cecil Farley has his new cornea examined. Pic: PA
Before the surgery, Mr Farley had no vision in his right eye – but his sight has slowly been improving ever since the procedure in February.
He said: “It has made a great difference to my sight. It was very blurred and I couldn’t distinguish a face.
“Now I can see better with it, the brighter the light the better. It’s coming along slowly – they said it could take up to a year.”
The artificial cornea has been compared to a contact lens. The device, which replaces the inner part of the cornea, is surgically attached to the eye by a single stitch and is put in place with a gas bubble.
Only 200 people worldwide, including Mr Farley, have been fitted with an EndoArt so far, but there are hopes it can be more widely rolled out.
Organic cornea transplants usually come from deceased donors. A total of 4,719 were donated to the NHS in 2022/23, according to the latest available figures.
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Consultant ophthalmologist Thomas Poole, from Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust in Surrey, which carried out the procedure, described the artificial cornea as a “great advancement”.
He said there had been fears that Mr Farley was “kind of getting to [his] last hope” after a previous human transplant failed.
Thomas Poole with Mr Farley. Pic: PA
Mr Poole said: “I had a very frank discussion with him before and I said: ‘Look, your graft has failed, you’re back on the waiting list. Because your other eye sees quite well, you’re not a high priority on the waiting list and you could be waiting for another year’.
“He’s in his 90s now and said ‘I just can’t wait that long. Is there anything else?’ And so this sprung to mind.
“I had just read a publication on very good reports from this artificial graft and it was that that made me think actually, maybe we could use this for John.”
Cecil Farley said he was overjoyed he would be able to continue seeing his wife. Pic: PA
Mr Poole and his colleague Hanbin Lee have now successfully given four patients artificial corneas in the last two months and the initial results have shown an improvement in vision.
He added: “Looking forward to the future, I think this may end up replacing human corneas for certain types of corneal graft patients.
“In maybe 10 or 20 years’ time – this may become the norm where we don’t need a human cornea, and we can just take one out of the box.”
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Deaf girl reacts to mother’s voice after hearing restored
Mr Farley, a former flooring company owner, said that once his sight is restored he hopes to do practical tasks like repairing a watch.
However, for now, he is content “pottering about”.
The UK-US trade deal has been signed and is “done”, US President Donald Trump has said as he met Sir Keir Starmer at the G7 summit.
The US president told reporters in Canada: “We signed it, and it’s done. It’s a fair deal for both. It’ll produce a lot of jobs, a lot of income.”
Sir Keir said the document “implements” the deal to cut tariffs on cars and aerospace, describing it as a “really important agreement”.
“So this is a very good day for both of our countries – a real sign of strength,” the prime minister added.
Mr Trump added that the UK was “very well protected” against any future tariffs, saying: “You know why? Because I like them”.
However, he did not say whether levies on British steel exports to the US would be set to 0%, saying “we’re gonna let you have that information in a little while”.
Mr Trump also praised Sir Keir as a “great” prime minister, adding: “We’ve been talking about this deal for six years, and he’s done what they haven’t been able to do.”
He added: “We’re very longtime partners and allies and friends and we’ve become friends in a short period of time.
“He’s slightly more liberal than me to put it mildly… but we get along.”
Sir Keir added that “we make it work”.
As the pair exited a mountain lodge in the Canadian Rockies where the summit is being held, Mr Trump held up a physical copy of the trade agreement to show reporters.
Several leaves of paper fell from the binding, and Sir Keir quickly stooped to pick them up, saying: “A very important document.”
Sir Keir Starmer picks up paper from the UK-US trade deal after Donald Trump dropped it at the G7 summit. Pic: Reuters
The US president also appeared to mistakenly refer to a “trade agreement with the European Union” at one point as he stood alongside the British prime minister.
Mr Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on countries in April. At the time, he announced 10% “reciprocal” rates on all UK exports – as well as separately announced 25% levies on cars and steel.
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In a joint televised phone call in May, Sir Keir and Mr Trump announced the UK and US had agreed on a trade deal – but added the details were being finalised.
Ahead of the G7 summit, the prime minister said he would meet Mr Trump for “one-on-one” talks, and added the agreement “really matters for the vital sectors that are safeguarded under our deal, and we’ve got to implement that”.
Whitehall officials tried to convince Michael Gove to go to court to cover up the grooming scandal in 2011, Sky News can reveal.
Dominic Cummings, who was working for Lord Gove at the time, has told Sky News that officials in the Department for Education (DfE) wanted to help efforts by Rotherham Council to stop a national newspaper from exposing the scandal.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Cummings said that officials wanted a “total cover-up”.
Politics latest: Grooming gangs findings unveiled
The revelation shines a light on the institutional reluctance of some key officials in central government to publicly highlight the grooming gang scandal.
In 2011, Rotherham Council approached the Department for Education asking for help following inquiries by The Times. The paper’s then chief reporter, the late Andrew Norfolk, was asking about sexual abuse and trafficking of children in Rotherham.
The council went to Lord Gove’s Department for Education for help. Officials considered the request and then recommended to Lord Gove’s office that the minister back a judicial review which might, if successful, stop The Times publishing the story.
Lord Gove rejected the request on the advice of Mr Cummings. Sources have independently confirmed Mr Cummings’ account.
Education Secretary Michael Gove in 2011. Pic: PA
Mr Cummings told Sky News: “Officials came to me in the Department of Education and said: ‘There’s this Times journalist who wants to write the story about these gangs. The local authority wants to judicially review it and stop The Times publishing the story’.
“So I went to Michael Gove and said: ‘This council is trying to actually stop this and they’re going to use judicial review. You should tell the council that far from siding with the council to stop The Times you will write to the judge and hand over a whole bunch of documents and actually blow up the council’s JR (judicial review).’
“Some officials wanted a total cover-up and were on the side of the council…
“They wanted to help the local council do the cover-up and stop The Times’ reporting, but other officials, including in the DfE private office, said this is completely outrageous and we should blow it up. Gove did, the judicial review got blown up, Norfolk stories ran.”
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Grooming gangs victim speaks out
The judicial review wanted by officials would have asked a judge to decide about the lawfulness of The Times’ publication plans and the consequences that would flow from this information entering the public domain.
A second source told Sky News that the advice from officials was to side with Rotherham Council and its attempts to stop publication of details it did not want in the public domain.
One of the motivations cited for stopping publication would be to prevent the identities of abused children entering the public domain.
There was also a fear that publication could set back the existing attempts to halt the scandal, although incidents of abuse continued for many years after these cases.
Sources suggested that there is also a natural risk aversion amongst officials to publicity of this sort.
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Mr Cummings, who ran the Vote Leave Brexit campaign and was Boris Johnson’s right-hand man in Downing Street, has long pushed for a national inquiry into grooming gangs to expose failures at the heart of government.
He said the inquiry, announced today, “will be a total s**tshow for Whitehall because it will reveal how much Whitehall worked to try and cover up the whole thing.”
He also described Mr Johnson, with whom he has a long-standing animus, as a “moron’ for saying that money spent on inquiries into historic child sexual abuse had been “spaffed up the wall”.
Asked by Sky News political correspondent Liz Bates why he had not pushed for a public inquiry himself when he worked in Number 10 in 2019-20, Mr Cummings said Brexit and then COVID had taken precedence.
“There are a million things that I wanted to do but in 2019 we were dealing with the constitutional crisis,” he said.
The Department for Education and Rotherham Council have been approached for comment.
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