Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of Clinical Commissioning Groups that do not meet NICE guidelines for IVF treatment; and what steps he is taking to encourage those Groups to adhere to those guidelines.

The Department does not collect official data on this subject matter. However, the national stakeholder organisation, Fertility Fairness, undertakes an annual survey using Freedom of Information requests directly from clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). Information collected for 2016/17 shows that 18 CCGs offer three cycles of in vitro fertilisation (IVF), in line with the current National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) fertility guidelines. Of the remaining CCGs that have not implemented the guidance in full 50 CCGs offer two cycles of IVF, 137 offer one cycle, and seven offer no routine service.

The Government’s position that CCGs should be following the NICE fertility guidelines as part of their NHS services to local people. I plan to meet with officials from NHS England and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority shortly to discuss NHS commissioning of fertility services and what more might be done to support CCGs to improve their service offer.