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01 October 2002

Dear _______

HFEA Fee Increase

I am writing to inform you that, subject to the approval of Treasury, the HFEA fee due per cycle of treatment will increase from 1 January 2003.

• The treatment fee for IVF will be £100 per cycle
• The treatment fee for DI will be £50

These new fees will apply to all treatment cycles reported to the HFEA on returns received at HFEA after 1st January 2003. All cycles reported to the HFEA on returns up to this date will be charged at the lower existing rates. Other fees remain unchanged; research fees are being reviewed separately.

The reason for this increase was discussed in a consultation document, The Modernisation of Regulation and the new Fee Strategy, which was sent to you on 28 June 2002.  This explained that recent reviews of the HFEA had confirmed that the resource and staffing levels were no longer adequate to meet current workloads, or the increased government and public expectations of regulation. It concluded that the HFEA had no option but to devise a new structure of fees to raise approximately £4 million to support its regulatory functions.

Members of the HFEA discussed a detailed budget and business case at the Authority's meeting on 26th September and agreed that major changes to the HFEA's functions were needed and that these would require significant additional funding.

The Authority was mindful that Government policy stipulates that the costs of regulation should be met by those being regulated. This means that the revenue needed to support regulation must be raised from clinics; the HFEA is engaged in separate discussions with the Department of Health about the resources required to support other functions.

During the past four months, the HFEA has consulted extensively on its fees strategy. A summary of responses to the consultation will be published on the website. In addition to this process, the Authority has received the report of an independent Steering Group, which took evidence from stakeholders including patients, service providers, policy makers and other regulatory bodies. Also a number of informal meetings were organised by the Chair and Chief Executive to discuss issues with Patients' Groups and several Persons Responsible.

These discussions, along with the formal submissions to the consultation process, have influenced the views of the HFEA significantly. The consultation document issued in June presented two options to provide fees of approximately £4 million: the introduction of new annual licence fees for clinics (option 1) and the present system but with higher treatment fees (option 2). Although a majority of individual responses to the consultation document supported option 1, other responses ? notably almost all of those involved in service provision - made it clear that this method of payment would be particularly burdensome for smaller centres and those reliant on NHS funding. The Authority was also persuaded that the costs of an increased annual licence fee would be passed on to patients and would not achieve the Authority's original objective of moving away from a ´patient tax'.

In the light of this, the Authority has decided not to implement its previously preferred option at this time but to generate the additional income required for regulation from increased treatment fees which will be reviewed annually.

We would like to thank all of you who contributed to the consultation process and we are confident that the increase in fees will enable the HFEA to deliver a much-improved service.

During the next few days you will receive details of a new audit process, which will underpin a new system of inspections and licensing and verify the Patient's Guide data. Within the next few weeks you will receive further details of how the changes to the HFEA will benefit clinics and patients.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Maureen Dalziel
Chief Executive

Page last updated: 23 March 2009

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