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 support couples access IVF treatment.

The Women’s Health Strategy was published on 20 July 2022 and contained a number of important changes and future ambitions to improve the variations in access to National Health Service funded fertility services.

We will improve access to in vitro fertilisation (IVF) by removing the additional financial burden on female same-sex couples accessing treatment. We will be working with NHS England to assess fertility provision across integrated care boards, which have responsibility for commissioning fertility services, with a view to removing non-clinical access criteria. We will also work with stakeholders to improve information provision on fertility and fertility treatments, including on the NHS website, and introduce greater transparency of the local provision of IVF.