{"id":8909,"date":"2016-07-20T22:14:17","date_gmt":"2016-07-20T22:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pamap.accessfertility.com\/ie\/2016\/07\/20\/postcode-lottery\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T15:06:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T14:06:03","slug":"postcode-lottery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.accessfertility.com\/ie\/postcode-lottery\/","title":{"rendered":"What IVF can I have on the NHS?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>That&#8217;s a complicated question. Who and what people can access on The NHS depends on where they live. It&#8217;s known in the fertility community as the UK&#8217;s IVF Post Code Lottery.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u00a0does the NHS fund?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The UK is split into four\u00a0publicly funded health systems.\u00a0How each of these systems decide to fund IVF varies widely.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>NHS Scotland &#8211; legislation is being introduced requiring all health boards to offer 3 cycles for all women under 40<\/li>\n<li>NHS Wales Health &#8211; women under 40 are entitled to 2 cycles.<\/li>\n<li>Social Care in Northern Ireland &#8211;\u00a0women under 40 can access 1 cycle.<\/li>\n<li>NHS England &#8211; it&#8217;s a whole lot more complicated with 211 different groups making different decisions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why is England different?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In 2013 Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCG) were introduced.\u00a0CCGs are clinically-led statutory NHS bodies responsible for the planning and commissioning of health care services for their local area. There are 211 CCGs in England and they vary in offering 0 cycles to offering 3 cycles. In addition to that their eligibility requirements differ. Whether you can access treatment can de dependant on your:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Age<\/li>\n<li>If either partner has a child from a previous relationship<\/li>\n<li>If you have had previous treatment<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Why does this matter?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The science has proven that the likelihood of having a live birth as a result of IVF increases if you have more than one try. This is known as the cumulative cycle approach and is something that has been endorsed by the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nice.org.uk\/guidance\/cg156\/ifp\/chapter\/in-vitro-fertilisation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">National Institute\u00a0for Health &amp; Care Excellence<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>All of Access Fertility&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.accessfertility.com\/programmes\">programmes<\/a> are based on the cumulative cycle approach.\u00a0 <span id=\"hs-cta-wrapper-3d4a7e64-04ee-46ba-ab5c-97680d029e5e\" class=\"hs-cta-wrapper\"><span id=\"hs-cta-3d4a7e64-04ee-46ba-ab5c-97680d029e5e\" class=\"hs-cta-node hs-cta-3d4a7e64-04ee-46ba-ab5c-97680d029e5e\" data-hs-drop=\"true\"><a id=\"cta_button_2057201_09d44205-286a-4335-bd01-a65b3854cee5\" class=\"cta_button \" title=\"Get in Touch\" href=\"https:\/\/www.accessfertility.com\/contact-us\">Get in Touch<\/a><\/span><\/span>\u00a0if you would like know more.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Will this improve in the future?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, it&#8217;s getting worse. Since 2014 many CCGs have ended or reduced their IVF treatment entitlement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Decommissioned all IVF treatment, except in isolated, complicated medical cases<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mid-Essex,\u00a0North East Essex, South Norfolk<\/p>\n<p><strong>CCGs consulting \u00a0ending their funding of IVF<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Basildon,\u00a0Brentwood\u00a0Bedfordshire.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CCGs that reduced their treatment funding to 1 cycle.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>North East Lincolnshire, Somerset, Cambridgeshite, Peterborough,<\/p>\n<p><strong>What can you do?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For the past 20 years the charity Fertility Fairness has been campaigning\u00a0for\u00a0people to have comprehensive and equal access to\u00a0a full range of appropriate NHS investigations and treatments for infertility.<\/p>\n<p>They are encouraging\u00a0people to raise awareness of this issue and bring an end to the post code lottery. They have a whole raft of things you can do <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fertilityfairness.co.uk\/what-can-i-do\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>That&#8217;s a complicated question. Who and what people can access on The NHS depends on where they live. It&#8217;s known in the fertility community as the UK&#8217;s IVF Post Code Lottery. What\u00a0does the NHS fund?\u00a0 The UK is split into four\u00a0publicly funded health systems.\u00a0How each of these systems decide to fund IVF varies widely. NHS [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ivf"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.0 (Yoast SEO v28.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What IVF can I have on the NHS | Access Fertility<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Who and what people can access on The NHS depends on where they live. 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