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09 January 2008

Regulator announces plans to help patients get clearer information about the cost of fertility treatment

The HFEA today announced plans to help patients understand how much their fertility treatment is likely to cost by requiring clinics to produce clear and accurate information in the form of personalised costed treatment plans.

Although the HFEA does not regulate the charges that clinics make for treatment, it is able to require clinics to provide good quality information to patients. The regulator will be working with professional bodies and patient groups to develop guidance to ensure that clinics explain the cost of treatment more clearly.

Going through fertility treatment can be very stressful and having clear information about the cost of that treatment should help reduce some of that stress for patients.

The decision comes after the regulator's online patients' panel, Fertility Views, repeatedly highlighted costs as one of their main concerns. In the latest survey, 85% of patients on the panel paid for the treatment themselves. Of these:

• Only 20% were given a costed treatment plan tailored to their particular needs. Others were given a general price list or verbal information about costs.
• 27% had to pay additional costs that were unexpected.
• 88% said they would like to have had a costed treatment plan

Where patients had unexpected additional costs, most were for medication. It can be particularly difficult to fix drugs costs because the final cost depends on a number of factors including dose, length of prescription and whether the type of medication has to be changed. The HFEA's guidance will include keeping patients informed about any changes to their drugs bill and any other additional costs.

Alan Doran, interim Chief Executive of the HFEA, said:

"Going through treatment for infertility is very stressful and we know that one of the key concerns for patients is how much it will cost.

"We know that some clinics have excellent ways of clearly explaining treatment costs. Fee structures and the way prices are explained can vary greatly from clinic to clinic, so we will be seeking out best practice and using it to help us develop guidance for the rest of the sector.

"The HFEA can work with clinics to help them ease patients' concerns about cost by ensuring that they are empowered with clear and reliable information."

Ends

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Notes to editors

The HFEA will be working with professional organisations and patient groups over the coming months to develop effective guidance for costed treatment plans.

Fertility Views is the HFEA's online patients' panel. Members of the panel, currently numbering around 1000 current and former IVF patients, are asked to give their feedback on a range of topics around the quality of information and services they experience before, during and after fertility treatment. The panel is surveyed by an independent agency approximately twice a year and provides the HFEA with invaluable insight into the experiences of fertility patients.

The HFEA is the independent regulator for IVF treatment and embryo research. Our role is to protect patients and the public interest, to drive improvement in the treatment and research sectors and to provide information to the public and policymakers about treatment and research.

The HFEA was set up in August 1991 as part of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. The HFEA's principal tasks are to license and monitor clinics that carry out in vitro fertilisation (IVF), donor insemination (DI) and human embryo research. The HFEA also regulates the storage of gametes (eggs and sperm) and embryos.

Page last updated: 11 March 2009

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