Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that Clinical Commissioning Groups meet guidelines that IVF should be offered to women until age 42; what estimate he has made of the number of Clinical Commissioning Groups that do not meet these guidelines; and if he will make a statement.

Clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) should have regard to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline on the assessment and treatment of people with fertility problems when commissioning services for which they are responsible. This includes the recommendation in the guideline that three cycles of in-vitro fertilisation be offered to qualifying couples where the woman is under the age of 40 and one cycle where the woman is between the ages of 40 and 42.

The NICE guideline is evidence based best practice for clinicians but is not mandatory. The availability of National Health Service funded fertility treatment is matter for local determination. Decisions on the level of service provision are underpinned by clinical insight and knowledge of local healthcare needs and priorities.

Information about the commissioning of fertility services is not collected centrally but an annual survey is undertaken by Fertility Fairness. This can be found at the following link:

http://www.fertilityfairness.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/England-FertilityFairness_FOI_2018.pdf