The HFEA strongly refutes any allegation that it is failing women in its regulation of the UK's IVF sector.

The HFEA goes to the extent of its powers to regulate those procedures involving the creation of embryos outside the body and donor sperm and the implantation of these into a woman. As with all areas of medicine, the UK's system of regulation for IVF procedures and associated treatment involves co-ordinated working between a series of regulators.

We have given very public warnings people going through IVF about untested and unvalidated treatments, such as Reproductive Immunology, and tell patients to make sure they are clear about what they will be paying for - as more than a third of patients tell us they pay more for their IVF treatment than they expect.

However, the HFEA does not have the legal power or role to regulate any treatments that doctors or clinics offer alongside the IVF procedures. These are a matter for a doctor's professional judgement, for which they are accountable to the General Medical Council.

Likewise the HFEA is not a financial regulator and we have no legal remit to regulate the cost or provision of treatment. However we do encourage patients to discuss this issue carefully with their clinic. We strongly believe clinics should give each and every patient a costed treatment plan before their treatment starts, detailing all the procedures that take place and what they will cost, so a patient is properly able to discuss these matters with their clinician to ensure that they are happy with what is planned for them.

It is surprising when we see professionals who have worked in the field of IVF who badly misunderstand the role and scope of the HFEA's regulation. Doctors and other professionals who have concerns about professional standards - such as the use of unscientific treatments and unnecessary procedures - should be raising these issues through their professional bodies such as the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the General Medical Council and the British Fertility Society.

We do everything in our powers to uphold appropriate standards in the sector. Our inspection and regulation of IVF procedures holds clinics to account to help make sure these procedures are safe and appropriate for patients. We also scrutinise patient information that clinics give to their patients as part of our inspection and licensing procedure.

In addition to this work around patient safety, we have an important role in producing our own impartial patient information. This includes our Guide to Infertility, Find a Clinic data - giving details of clinics services and success rates, patient factsheets about particular procedures and a range of Questions and Answers on a number of important topics.

This is all available through the HFEA website at http://www.hfea.gov.uk/

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Fertility regulator launches public consultation to find best ways of reducing the proportion of multiple births after IVF

 
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) is launching a public consultation on April 4 to find the best way to reduce avoidable problems for IVF children and their mothers who can suffer serious and long-term complications from twin births.

The HFEA will be listening closely to patients and professionals over the next three months to find the best way of reducing the proportion of multiple births after IVF. The key aim is to find the most effective way to do this whilst still allowing clinicians to tailor their treatment to each woman's individual circumstances and without prejudicing her chances of IVF success. Public meetings for both patients and clinicians will be held during the consultation to allow debate and further feedback into the consultation.

The consultation paper proposes four main options to help clinics reduce multiple birth rates:

• Increasing awareness of multiple births risks among clinics and patients and encourage increased use of single embryo transfer
  
  
• To phase in a maximum twin rate of 10% which clinics must not exceed
  
  
• To develop HFEA guidance to define when only one embryo should be replaced
  
  
•  To apply HFEA guidance for single embryo transfer if clinics exceed twin rate of 10%

The consultation follows last year's report by a group of experts, including fertility clinicians and patients, chaired by Professor Peter Braude from King's College London. The group agreed that IVF children must be given a better chance to be born as healthy, full-term, singletons with a normal birthweight. The Braude report further recommended that the only safe way to reduce the risk for IVF babies was to move towards transferring one embryo in those women with the best chance of IVF success. This would not mean that all women would have a single embryo transferred or that double embryo transfers will be banned.  Instead, they suggested that a woman with a good chance of IVF success should have her embryos implanted one at a time, with frozen cycles following the initial fresh transfer, to reduce the risk multiple births pose to herself and the children she might carry.

A number of key professional bodies and patient organisations are expected to participate in the public consultation and the meetings to give their views on the best way to make IVF safer. The consultation is due to report in Autumn 2007.

Shirley Harrison, Chair of the HFEA, said:

"We know that multiple birth is the single biggest risk of IVF. "It is our primary job as a regulator to make sure that IVF treatment is safe and appropriate. We want clinics to reduce multiple births and minimise the risks for both mothers and the children they are carrying.

"The most important thing that we are looking for in this consultation is to find a solution that is workable in practice for all involved. Proper consultation is much more than just presenting the issues, it is about listening to the views of a wide range of people so that we can work together towards the best possible outcome for mothers and their children.

"This consultation will be about finding a way to reduce the risk of multiple births without prejudicing women's chances of IVF in a way which doctors feel they can work with whilst still tailoring their treatment to the individual circumstances of each patient they see."

The consultation document is available here: http://www.hfea.gov.uk/en/483.html 

FAQs - Multiple births consultation : http://www.hfea.gov.uk/en/1510.html

Further online dicussion here : http://www.fertilityfriends.co.uk/forum/index.php?board=205.0 

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