British Fertility Society

The guide indicates that 8,800 babies (1.5% of all births) are now born every year by IVF, 3650 every year are born by intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), and many more thorough other Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), underlining how successful the treatment has become since it was first pioneered in Britain in 1978.

Much ART is privately funded and one of our major challenges is to increase the number of assisted births funded by the NHS, while maintaining our internationally recognised standards. Implementation of the NICE guidelines on fertility will be a major step to making fertility treatment available to all.

Professor Alison Murdoch, Chair of the BFS, said: “The publication of the guide confirms the great strides assisted reproduction has made over the last few years. More and more couples are now coming to fertility clinics and many clinics take on couples who have really quite difficult fertility problems, which may be reflected in individual clinics’ performance indicators. Infertility is a common medical condition, affecting 1 in 6 couples, and the important challenge for the NHS now is to expand the level of fertility treatment available to those unable to have children through natural conception.”

For more information: please contact the British Fertility Society press office