Lord Robert Winston: NHS ‘rips off’ couples for IVF treatment

Fertility expert Lord Robert Winston blasted the NHS for ripping off childless couples while touring a Birmingham hospital on Wednesday.

The scientist, renowned for his work in IVF, said the treatment should cost around 1,000 yet parents-in-waiting are being charged 5,000 to 6,000 per cycle.

Speaking to the Birmingham Mail outside Birmingham Womens Hospital, in Edgbaston, the professor said: It is shocking that both the health service and private clinics are charging too much when it could be much cheaper and more effective.

Success rates are not really improving by that much. We should be concentrating on academic medicine to improve more effective way of registering treatment.

Its not fair that people have to re-mortgage their homes. The cost should be around 1,000, instead of the 5,000 to 6,000 it can end up costing.

While visiting the hospital Lord Winston toured the clinic where Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) is carried out another one of his specialisms.

PGD is where embryos are created by IVF and tested for conditions such as Cystic Fibrosis, B Thalassaemia or Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, so only healthy embryos are replaced.

The Womens Hospital welcomed the first baby to be born after PGD at the end of 2011.

He said of the service at the hospital: It is one of the very fine examples of what we are doing in the UK. It is very important as there are a range of genetic disorders.

Between two to three per cent of children are born with genetic abnormalities and any kind of testing that can be done to reduce this number is a good thing.

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Lord Robert Winston: NHS 'rips off' couples for IVF treatment