F-2011-00251 - Adverse incidents reported to the HFEA by licensed centres in Northern Ireland
21 September 2011
Summary of request
The Authority was asked for information about the number of clinical errors that have been made in IVF treatment carried out in Northern Ireland each year for the last three years and the category of each.
HFEA response
Before setting out the relevant information held, it would be helpful to give some background information. Firstly, the HFEA holds data only on the number of incidents and near misses reported to the Authority by licensed centres, which may not represent the number of clinical errors in IVF treatment. Secondly, the HFEA openly encourages the reporting of incidents and continues to work closely with centres to improve quality. As a result, centres are continuing to respond positively to the opportunity to share lessons learned from incidents which have been reviewed and vigorously investigated. There has actually been a fall in the number of the most serious incidents. In the last year there were more than 50,000 cycles of IVF which entails hundreds of thousands of laboratory procedures. The HFEA takes all incidents seriously but the total number of incidents represents a tiny percentage of all the procedures taking place.
In response to the request we have searched our incident records and extracted the information presented in table 1. Please note that for the purpose of responding to the request we have interpreted clinical errors, as specified in the request, not to include reported incidents involving such things as equipment failure and environmental issues. A copy of the HFEA’s Compliance and Enforcement Policy is available on the HFEA website at: http://www.hfea.gov.uk/docs/Compliance_and_Enforcement_Policy.pdf . This sets out how the Authority processes and categorises (grades) reported incidents.
Table 1. The number and grade of incidents reported to the HFEA by licensed centres in Northern Ireland in 2008-2010
| Year in which incident was reported to the HFEA | Grade A | Grade B | Grade C | 'Near miss' |
| 2008 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 0 |
| 2009 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 0 |
| 2010 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
Page last updated: 16 August 2012