AN Oxford priest has become the first person in the world to have surgery on the inside of his eye performed by a robot controlled using a joystick.

Revd Dr William Beaver, an associate priest at St Mary the Virgin in Iffley, was operated on at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

Professor of opthamology Robert MacLaren, assisted by Nuffield medical fellow Dr Thomas Edwards, used a remotely controlled robot to lift a membrane a hundredth of a millimetre thick from the retina at the back of Father Beaver's right eye.

The experimental procedure was carried out by the Robotic Retinal Dissection Device, also known as R2D2.

Father Beaver said, “My sight is coming back.

"I am delighted that my surgery went so well and I feel honoured to be part of this pioneering research project.”

Father Beaver had a membrane growing on the surface of his retina, which had contracted and pulled it into an uneven shape.

This led to his vision being distorted, like looking in a hall of mirrors at a fairground.

The membrane therefore had to be dissected off the retina without damaging it.

The robot operates inside the eye through a single hole that is less than 1mm in diameter and needs to go in and out of the eye through this same hole during various steps of the procedure, even if the eye rotates.

The device eliminates unwanted tremors in the surgeon's hand- such as their pulse- so tiny surgical manipulations can be safely carried out within the eye.

The robot may enable new, high-precision procedures that are currently out of the reach of the human hand.

Professor MacLaren said: "There is no doubt in my mind that we have just witnessed a vision of eye surgery in the future.

"Current technology with laser scanners and microscopes allows us to monitor retinal diseases at the microscopic level, but the things we see are beyond the physiological limit of what the human hand can operate on. With a robotic system, we open up a whole new chapter of eye operations that currently cannot be performed."

Father Beaver was taking part in a trial involving 12 patients, with the first part of the trial testing the procedure carried out on him.

The second phase will assess how the robot can place a fine needle under the retina and inject fluid through it.