Yes, laser eye surgery can correct long-sightedness, not only short sight. For most long-sighted eyes the usual choice is hyperopic LASIK, which at Blue Fin Vision starts from £4,500 for both eyes and includes your consultation, scans, surgery and follow-up. The real limit is strength: the Royal College of Ophthalmologists says a laser reliably treats long sight up to around +4.00 dioptres, and prescriptions above that often do better with a lens-based procedure.
What long-sightedness is, and how a laser corrects it
Long-sightedness — hyperopia, sometimes written hypermetropia — is where your eye focuses light behind the retina instead of on it, usually because the eyeball is a fraction too short or the cornea is a little too flat. Near tasks blur first; with a stronger prescription, distance goes too. When you’re young you can often paper over mild long sight by focusing harder (your lens still flexes well), which is why plenty of people don’t notice it until their focusing muscles tire in their forties. That timing is important, because it’s easy to confuse long sight with presbyopia, the age-related loss of near focus that eventually catches up with everyone.
Laser correction for long sight does the opposite of what it does for short sight. Rather than flattening the middle of the cornea, the excimer laser removes a ring of tissue around the centre to make the cornea steeper and pull the focus forward onto the retina. It’s a well-established treatment, but a steeper cornea is a slightly more demanding shape to create than a flatter one, which is part of why long sight has a lower treatable ceiling than short sight and why the assessment matters so much.
Which laser treatment suits long sight
The same family of treatments used for short sight can correct long sight; your surgeon picks the one that fits your cornea and prescription rather than one being simply “best”.
- Hyperopic LASIK is the workhorse for long sight. A femtosecond laser makes a thin flap, the excimer laser steepens the cornea beneath it, and the flap is smoothed back without stitches. Recovery is quick — many people are back at a desk the next day. See how it works on our LASIK guide.
- Surface treatments (PRK, LASEK and TransPRK) reshape the cornea just under its surface layer and can suit thinner corneas, at the cost of a sorer, slower recovery. More on PRK and LASEK.
- Hyperopic SMILE is a newer, keyhole option for long sight offered at some clinics; we cover who it fits in our guide to SMILE for long-sightedness.
If your main frustration is reading rather than distance — common from the mid-forties — the answer is often not a straight long-sight correction but a blended approach, where one eye is set for distance and the other for closer work. Presbyond laser blended vision is built around exactly that. It’s worth being honest with yourself at the assessment about what you actually want to stop reaching for your glasses to do.
Who can have laser eye surgery for long sight
The Royal College of Ophthalmologists sets out the basics: you need to be over 18 with a stable prescription, meaning no change greater than about 0.5 dioptres in the last two years. For long sight specifically, you’re most likely to be suitable up to around +4.00 dioptres, though higher amounts can sometimes be treated. Your corneas also have to be thick enough and a regular shape — conditions such as keratoconus, marked dry eye, or an untreated cataract can rule laser out or mean it’s worth treating something else first. A proper suitability check is the only way to get a straight answer, and our guide to who is not suitable for laser eye surgery goes through the reasons in detail.
Stronger long sight isn’t a dead end. Where a prescription sits above the laser range, a lens-based procedure usually corrects it more reliably — an implantable contact lens for a younger eye, or refractive lens exchange from your late forties, which also takes future cataracts off the table. If you’re weighing laser against a lens, lens replacement versus laser over 50 is a good place to start.
Not sure how far your long sight can be corrected? Get free, no-obligation quotes and a suitability check from UK laser eye surgery providers.
Get your free quotes →Recovery and how the result settles
Recovery depends on the treatment. After LASIK most people notice a big improvement within a day or two and can return to work quickly, though contact sports are off the cards for about a month. Surface treatments take longer: the eye is usually sore for a few days while the surface layer heals, and your vision can take a week or more to reach the driving standard. Whichever you have, some glare, halos and dryness at first are normal and generally ease over the following months.
Two things are worth knowing about long sight in particular. Vision can take a little longer to settle than it does after short-sight treatment, and a small number of long-sighted eyes drift back slightly over the first year, which is one reason clinics build in follow-up and, where needed, a fine-tuning treatment. The Royal College of Ophthalmologists puts the serious risks in perspective: permanent, serious loss of vision is rare — fewer than 1 in 5,000 patients need a corneal transplant — while needing some form of additional surgery to reach the best result is far more common, affecting up to 1 in 10. Our guide to how long laser eye surgery lasts covers longevity in more depth.
What it costs
Blue Fin Vision is the clinic group we work with for laser eye surgery; Sapphire Eye Care, the other group we work with, doesn’t offer it. Blue Fin Vision says its prices are correct as of 1 January 2026, and we checked them on 16 September 2026. Every price below covers both eyes and includes the consultation, imaging, surgery and follow-up.
| Treatment at Blue Fin Vision | Price from (both eyes) |
|---|---|
| LASIK (the usual choice for long sight) | £4,500 |
| PRK / LASEK | £4,500 |
| LASER Blended Vision | £5,000 |
| LASER High Prescription | £5,000 |
| SMILE | £5,500 |
| PRESBYOND | £5,500 |
Blue Fin Vision’s initial laser consultation and follow-ups are free; advanced diagnostics are listed at £250 and a post-surgery second opinion at £400. For a fuller breakdown of what shapes the bill, see how much private laser eye surgery costs, and if you want to line up quotes, comparing clinic prices has a checklist. On paying, Blue Fin Vision says flexible financing is available to spread the cost of laser eye surgery, with personalised payment plans; it doesn’t publish an interest rate, deposit or monthly figure. Eye Surgery Clinic does not lend money or arrange finance.
Source: Blue Fin Vision laser eye surgery costs, read 16 September 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Sources
- The Royal College of Ophthalmologists: Laser vision correction: patient information
- NHS: Laser eye surgery and lens surgery
- Blue Fin Vision: Laser eye surgery costs (prices correct as of 1 January 2026, read 16 September 2026)
We only publish the prices of the clinic groups we work with. General information, not personal medical advice: your surgeon will tell you which treatment, if any, suits your eyes.