IVF postcode lottery hitting couples who want a family

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helen puttick health correspondent

The first report to show how health boards are performing against a new target to cut delays for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) shows centres in Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh are hitting the goal early.

At the country's biggest unit, in Glasgow, it is a different story. Of those who started IVF in the city this summer, 63 per cent had waited for longer than the target of 12 months.

Patients may already have spent two years trying to conceive naturally before they are referred for IVF and, as they approach their late 30s, their chances of success recede. Delays beginning treatment can have a significant impact on a couple's chances of starting a family.

Professor Richard Fleming, an expert in fertility treatment at Glasgow University and founder of the Glasgow Centre for Reproductive Medicine, said: "The worst way you can treat infertility of any nature is to build in a delay."

The only NHS IVF centre in Glasgow, the West of Scotland assisted conception unit at Glasgow Royal Infirmary (GRI), has experienced two turbulent years.

In November 2012 there was a slump in the number of women successfully conceiving through IVF - and health board NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GGC) began referring them to the city's private Nuffield Hospital instead. It was thought air pollutants from building works on the floor above the GRI unit may have been to blame.

This summer inspectors from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority raised a new concern about the length of time patients referred to the Glasgow service had to wait to see a counsellor.

Yesterday, the statistics arm of NHS Scotland published the first picture of how the country's four IVF centres are performing against the new target to start preparing patients for their first IVF cycle within a year of referral. In total 494 patients were screened at an IVF centre in the three months to September. Around 71 per cent of eligible patients were screened for IVF treatment within 365 days - against a target of 90 per cent to be met by March 31.

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IVF postcode lottery hitting couples who want a family