Nurses urge action on IVF treatment

May 1, 2008

Apr 29, 2008

The Government must take action to ensure infertile women are given three cycles of IVF on the NHS, nurses have said.

They called for an end to the postcode lottery which sees some women able to access free fertility treatment while others are forced to pay for care.

Four years ago, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) said women should be given three cycles of IVF on the NHS in England.

Then health secretary John Reid promised one cycle each but stopped short of setting out a timetable for when the NHS would implement the full guideline to give women three chances.

A Department of Health survey of primary care trusts (PCTs) released last year showed that few trusts have implemented the Nice guideline in full.

Nurses voted nine to one to lobby the Government to ensure NHS trusts implemented the guidance.

Jane Denton, from the Royal College of Nursing’s fertility group, told the annual conference in Bournemouth: “It discourages me that even now when people go forward for treatment it’s an enormous battle every step of the way. It adds to the pain and what many see as the stigma of infertility. The importance of the Nice guidance is essential.”

Last year, a survey of 151 PCTs for the Department of Health showed that some imposed a range of different lifestyle, health and age tests to restrict provision of NHS fertility treatment.

Most (98) of the 151 trusts said they paid for one cycle of IVF, 32 said they would fund up to two and seven would fund up to three cycles. Fourteen either did not fund IVF or did not provide details of the number of cycles they would pay for.

Similar variations were found for the intra cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) procedure in which a single sperm is injected into a woman’s egg, with 90 PCTs saying they would fund a single cycle for a couple, 29 up to two and six up to three.