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22 December 2010

Dear Person Responsible,

Satellite and transport agreements: assessment and website content

I am writing to you to clarify what the Authority expects of you as Person Responsible (PR) with regard to any agreements you have with satellite and/or transport IVF providers.

I am doing so because we have recently been contacted by patients who cannot find any reference on our Choose a Fertility Clinic (CaFC) website to centres that appear to be providing fertility treatment. In fact, the situation was that these fertility centres had satellite agreements in place that the Authority had not been told about. In consequence there was a lack of accurate and up to date information available to patients.

We need to be confident that patients can access up to date and accurate information about the providers of fertility treatments. As PR, you are responsible for ensuring that the Authority knows about your satellite or transport providers; for ensuring that patients are told about the treatments offered by these providers in simple, plain English and for ensuring that your website accurately reflects the agreements that you hold and that you notify us immediately if there are any changes to agreements.

I attach an annex that lists the information that we hold about the satellite and/or transport providers that you have. You will be contacted in the next few weeks by your inspector who will ask you to confirm that the information is accurate and up to date or to notify us of amendments or new arrangements. You should ensure that we have copies of agreements that you have entered into for satellite or transport services. You must also have a third party agreement with your transport provider(s).

As PR you are responsible for adhering to the terms of your licence. Where you have a satellite or transport provider, you remain personally responsible for these services even though another organisation is providing them. A breach by a satellite or transport provider is a breach of your licence and it is your centre and your licence that would be under scrutiny by a Licence Committee in that eventuality.

The responsibility for assessing the quality of service of transport or satellite providers rests with you, the primary (HFEA licensed) centre. This is enshrined in standard licence condition T112 which requires that you evaluate and select third parties on the basis of their ability to meet the requirements of licence conditions and the guidance set out in the HFEA Code of Practice.

You might find it helpful to share this correspondence with your satellite or transport providers to help them understand that they will be evaluated and should expect to be able to provide evidence of compliance with the terms of your agreement and HFEA requirements.

Where your satellite or transport providers have relationships with other licensed centres then it may reduce the regulatory burden to consider undertaking a joint evaluation or sharing the findings of any evaluation. The HFEA would like primary centres to work closely with their satellite and/or transport providers to share expertise to help ensure the provision of safe and high quality services while reducing the burden of regulatory requirements on sometimes small units with limited resources.

Finally, contacts from patients about provision of treatments by apparently unlicensed clinics have identified that the websites of some transport and satellite providers are misleading. They do not make it clear that licensed treatments take place remotely from the satellite or transport centres.

It is firmly the responsibility of the primary centre to ensure that the websites of those with whom they enter into satellite or transport agreements accurately reflect the services that are provided and you are asked to review the websites of your satellite or transport providers to ensure that they state:

• satellite or transport services are not directly licensed by the HFEA 
• satellite or transport facilities are not entitled to carry out licensable activities and such activities are not conducted on the satellite or transport premises;
• satellite or transport patients may receive licensed treatment only at a HFEA licensed centre;
• the names and addresses of the licensed centres with whom the satellite or transport centre has agreements.

Satellite and transport centres not licensed directly by the HFEA are not permitted to carry out intrauterine insemination and if websites or other materials are advertising these services you must act immediately to inform us.

Sincerely

Alan Doran CB
Chief Executive

 

Page last updated: 24 August 2012

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