Understanding clinic success rates

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The HFEA produces 'success rates', also known as 'live birth rates' for every licensed clinic. These show the number of treatments carried out by the clinic in a particular year, and the number of babies that were born as a result.

On this page:

• What should I keep in mind when looking at success rates?
• Why are some clinic success rates lower than others?
• Success rates can differ with types of treatment
• How old are the success rates published on this site?
• How do we get the figures?
• What is a clinical pregnancy rate?
• Why should I look at clinical pregnancy rates?

What should I keep in mind when looking at success rates?

When looking at the success rates for a clinic, it's very important that you look at the figures that are most relevant for your circumstances.

• Female fertility declines with age and this is something that will affect the outcome of treatment. We show the success rates for different age groups so that you can see how successful treatment is for women in your age group.
• Looking at the 'average' success rate for a clinic is not helpful, as it will not tell you how likely you are to have successful treatment there.
• The success rates we publish should only be used as a guide to a clinic's performance, rather than a guarantee of success for an individual.
• The past performance of a clinic is not necessarily a guide to future performance. The success rates relate to a period of treatment from several years ago and may not be a good indication of success rates at the particular clinic today.
• There are other factors to consider when choosing a clinic. You may want to look at the clinic's inspection reports and Licence Committee minutes.

Why are some clinics success rates lower than others?

Success rates can be affected by the type of patient a clinic will treat. If the clinic specialises in treating younger women, their overall success rate is likely to be higher than a clinic that accepts older patients. 

A clinic treating more complicated cases, perhaps where this is no identifiable reason for infertility is likely to have a lower average success rate than a clinic that treats people where the cause of infertility is known.

Clinics may have higher success rates for treatment if they treat women who are not infertile, but who have no male partner and are using donated sperm in their treatment.

Success rates can differ with types of treatment

Success also differs depending on the type of treatment you have. With IVF, we show the outcomes depending on whether you are using fresh or frozen embryos. If you are using donated eggs in IVF treatment, the success rates will be different, as donated eggs come from women aged 35 or younger.  Also success rates for donor insemination are different from those for IVF treatment.

Another factor that can affect success rates is the number of treatments carried out. We show the number of treatment cycles carried out, as well as the percentage that this figure represents.

Sometimes a clinic carries out very few treatments in some categories (treatments for patients aged 40 - 42, for example). In these cases, where the number is 50 or lower, it is standard good practice to show the actual number, but not to use it as the basis of a percentage figure.

How old are the success rates published on this site?

The most recent live birth rates are from 2005. This may seem like a long time ago - but don't forget that you have to wait for nine months after a treatment is carried out to know what the outcome is!

We also record where treatment results in a single baby, twins or triplets. A clinic with a high rate of multiple births may appear to have higher success rates - but those multiple births carry risks to both mother and baby.

How do we get the figures?

The success rate data that we publish on our website is provided to us by the individual clinics themselves and is taken from the treatment records that they maintain. The responsibility is on the clinics to ensure that the data they send us fully reflects all the treatments carried out by them and does not contain any inaccuracies or omissions in relation to important information like dates of birth etc.

The HFEA works with clinics to identify and reduce possible inaccuracies in the data they send to us. In addition, the HFEA visits clinics periodically to assess the reliability of their reporting systems. However the HFEA is unable to check each individual medical record held by the clinics. The HFEA requires each clinic to check the data held by the HFEA against their own medical records for the reporting period, and then to self certify, by signing a document confirming that the data they have provided to us is correct.

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What is a clinical pregancy rate?

A clinical pregnancy is defined as a pregnancy where an ultrasound scan has shown at least one fetal heartbeat. If more than one fetal heartbeat is discovered on ultrasound this is still counted as one clinical pregnancy for the patient's cycle.

Clinical pregnancy rates are used to give you more recent data for clinics as it takes 2 - 3 months to collect this information for a treatment cycle compared to 10 - 12 months to collect information about live birth outcomes.

On average for patients under 40 years of age, the final success rate is approximately 90% of the clinical pregnancy rate. For example:

Why should I look at clinical pregnancy rates?

 We know that patients want access to the most up to date success rate information. To get live birth rates, we have to wait until the completion of a pregnancy along with a couple of months for clinics to supply and confirm the data.

Because the HFEA gets clinical pregnancy rate data approximately 9 months before birth outcomes, clinical pregnancy rates can be given for more recent treatments. So while we can only provide live birth rates for treatments that took place in 2005, clinical pregnancy rates can give an idea of the success of treatments in a clinic in 2007.

While clinical pregnancy rates don´t provide the full picture of success that a final live birth rate does, this information is provided as an additional resource to help patients make the complex and difficult decisions around their treatment. Patients need to make sure they take all the factors into account before making a final choice including, location of clinic, personal impressions and services offered. As well as live birth rates and, possibly, clinical pregnancy rates. Read more advice on choosing a clinic.

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