IVF cuts ‘unfair’, says world’s first test-tube baby
Louise Brown, the world’s first “test-tube baby”, has attacked the state of NHS fertility services after figures revealed that rationing of IVF treatment had reached a 13-year low. She said cuts that meant couples were increasingly being denied fertility treatment were “unfair”.
THE world’s first “test tube” baby has attacked as “unfair” the state of NHS fertility services as figures revealed that rationing has reduced access to IVF treatment to a 13-year low.
Four decades after British doctors made history by conceiving her in a petri dish, Louise Brown said cuts that meant couples were increasingly denied IVF were devastating.
Speaking at the world’s largest fertility conference in Texas, Ms Brown said clinical help to get pregnant should be “readily available” on the NHS.
Her comments came as a damning report found just one in 10 local health areas was meeting national guidelines guaranteeing infertile women under the age of 40 three full rounds of IVF treatment.
The survey by Fertility Fairness found the number offering just one round had gone up to 61 per cent, compared to 49 per cent in 2013. Seven of England’s 208 Clinical Commissioning Groups now provide no service at all. The data also revealed a stark geographical divide, with the four best areas all in Greater Manchester, including Oldham where Ms Brown was born.
In 1977, her father John had to win the football pools to pay for an operation that enabled his wife Lesley to attempt experimental IVF.
Since 2004 the treatment has been provided free on the NHS. However, patient groups have warned that under-pressure local health bosses are increasingly refusing to provide IVF in order to balance their books.
Last week The Daily Telegraph reported the funding crisis had caused a seven-fold rise in medical journeys to Greece for IVF treatment, part of a wider exodus of patients who were on NHS waiting lists.
Ms Brown, who was conceived 40 years ago on Nov 10, said it was “not fair” that couples unable to afford private fertility care were going untreated.
“For someone to say, ‘Well, we’re not going to give you the funding’, it must be devastating for a couple,” she said. “I think it should be readily available,” she added, acknowledging that the problem was due to wider NHS funding issues.
The new report found that, as well as refusing to provide IVF, local NHS commissioners were seeking to ration services by the back door by narrowly interpreting the Nice rules.
Half used their own definition of what constitutes “full” IVF cycles, only transferring a set number of embryos rather than all that were viable. Some also stipulated an arbitrary age criteria for access to NHS IVF, in contravention of the rules.