A partially-blind pensioner can see again after taking part in the world’s first trial of ‘bionic eye’ technology at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital.

The Argus II system helps patients’ vision by using implants in the retina to receive signals from a camera mounted on a special pair of glasses.

It is being used for the very first time at the Oxford Road hospital to tackle the previously untreatable Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) - the most common cause of sight loss in the developed world.

And the first patient to trial the system is 80-year-old Ray Flynn, from Audenshaw, who has been losing his vision since being diagnosed with dry AMD around eight years ago.

After undergoing surgery to install Argus II in June, even with his eyes closed, Ray is now able to make out the outline of people and objects.

A leading surgeon from the hospital has now hailed the trial a ‘total success’.

Paulo Stanga, consultant ophthalmologist and vitreoretinal surgeon at the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, said: “Mr Flynn’s progress is truly remarkable. He is seeing the outline of people and objects very effectively.

He is the first patient to be implanted with Argus II as part of a trial we are doing that aims to establish whether blind patients with total central vision loss due to dry AMD can benefit from an artificial retina.

“As far as I am concerned, the first results of the trial are a total success, and I look forward to treating more dry AMD patients with the Argus II as part of this trial. We are currently recruiting four more patients to the trial in Manchester.”

Patients using the system, developed by American company Second Sight Medical Products, are given an implant into their retina and a camera mounted on a pair of glasses sends wireless signals direct to the nerves which control sight.

The signals are then ‘decoded’ by the brain.

Doctors now hope that Argus II will one day become routine on the NHS, after the ‘eyes’ also transformed the lives of three people left blind by a different eye condition called retinitis pigmentosa.

Eye experts at the hospital were astonished when they realised one of the patients using the technology could read for the first time in his adult life. Another was able to see fireworks for the first time in 40 years.