I’m a fertility expert, this is why people aren’t having children
In an article for The i Paper, our founder Professor Geeta Nargund writes that "despite the high number of those affected by infertility, there are severe disparities in access to fertility treatment across the UK, as levels of NHS funding for IVF varies widely from region to region: known as the NHS IVF postcode lottery."
She explains: "Just three of 42 regional integrated care boards (ICBs) provide the NICE-recommended three IVF cycles for women under 40 – and in 2022, only 27 per cent of IVF cycles in the UK were NHS-funded, down from 40 per cent a decade before.
This is even more shocking when we take in the added hurdles faced by the LGBTQ+ community and single women.
For these communities, fertility treatments are their only way to create families, but they often face non-clinical criteria to access the treatment they need. Currently, over half of ICBs require female same-sex couples to self-fund between up to 12 cycles of artificial insemination before they are eligible for IVF on the NHS – an added cost of thousands of pounds. Meanwhile, in 2022, just 16 per cent of same-sex couples and 18 per cent of single women had NHS funding for their first IVF treatment, compared to 52 per cent of heterosexual couples."
Commenting on her piece, Professor Nargund said:
"We will be failing in our obligations to uphold the founding principles of the NHS if we fail to provide equal and fair access to medical treatments, regardless of where people live and their sexual orientation."
Read the full article here: