Tell them that you are a driver.

https://www.gov.uk/driving-eyesight-rules

Two years ago I was not asked if I was a driver, I'm not and had my procedure about six weeks after my appointment. In fact then I was told that my cataracts were not too bad and asked if I wanted them done now or to wait. Having been short sighted since a child I jumped at the now option. 

You may be right about cutting waiting lists, but it may also be a way of priotising whose need is more urgent, as was the case for me under the Australian public health system.   There's also the issue of road safety:  most of us with cataracts may theoretically have good enough eyesight to still be driving, but it's certainly not safe to drive at night with cataracts and I've found my distance estimation enormously improved after surgery on the worst eye.

I do know that there's a lot of variation under public health system here:  Melbourne's Eye & Ear Hospital were taking weeks to even get me on to the waiting list, with repeated reqeusts for more referrals, and it would then have taken up to 18 months for the worst eye to be done.  I discovered by chance that other public hospitals here also do cataract surgery and got an appointment within a fortnight and surgery about 5 weeks later.  The other eye will be done towards the end of January.  If I'd waited for the Eye & Ear Hospital I would've been totally blind befoe I got any surgery at all.

The public health system here would certainly make you wait if your cataracts were "not too bad" so it sounds as if you were lucky to have yours sorted so quickly.

" The heading to the post reads "Tell them you're a driver" ... when you're not .. how is that not a lie?"

The tell them is obviously not me but others here in the U.K. as my procedures have already been done.

"The public health system here would certainly make you wait if your cataracts were "not too bad" so it sounds as if you were lucky to have yours sorted so quickly"

No, that's the way it was at that time as people in England and Scotland were being done quickly. That evidently from other posters did not apply to Wales and Northern Ireland.

I'm in S.E. England where the three failing Health Authorities are now under 'Special Measures' Perhaps they are now trying to look better by selective pruning of the waiting lists as has happened in the past. Patients are supposed to be seen and treated within eighteen weeks. I was not so fortunate when waiting for heart valve surgery as it was 54 weeks from my first appointment to having surgery. 

I won't be surprised if the moderators take your post down for those very reasons but I'm not into reporting peope so let's see what happens.

Have a good xmas and new year ......

I concede you were advising others to tell a lie rather than teling one yourself but that doesn't change the tenor of my response

Are you enjoying the present heatwave down there? I see that horse racing was cancelled in Melbourne yesterday for the sake of horses and humans.

G'night.

“possibly a word that originally rooted from the phrase "good night" in australlia. Im going to bed, g'night.

Sleep well .......