Health Minister Robin Swann announces publicly funded IVF treatment will increase to one full cycle for eligible women

Speaking during a visit to the Regional Fertility Centre, the Health Minister said: “I recognise how difficult it is for people who long to have a child but who are unable to do so without intervention and this initial increase to one full cycle for eligible women should represent a positive step forward. There is also a retrospective eligibility date to allow more women to avail of further treatment under this new change.”

Read the ministers statement on the Department of Health Website

Currently, those women eligible for publicly funded IVF treatment are entitled to receive one fresh and one frozen embryo transfer, even if they achieve a live birth with the first transfer. Under this change, any eligible woman who does not achieve a live birth with either her fresh or first frozen embryo transfers, and still has frozen embryos, will be entitled to further treatment until either she has a live birth or she has transferred all her frozen embryos.

A woman will be eligible if she meets the published access criteria for IVF and has been placed on the waiting list for publicly funded IVF/ICSI treatment on or after 1 October 2022.

Minister Swann continued: “I am very conscious that there is a lot of anticipation around the full implementation of the New Decade New Approach (NDNA) commitment to provide up to three funded cycles of IVF treatment. However, there are several challenges that need to be addressed before second and third IVF cycles can be phased in, including increasing the physical footprint of the Regional Fertility Centre to enable capacity to be increased, as well as ensuring that we have the appropriate number of specialist staff in place to deliver this expanded service as planned.

“Whilst this initial increase in provision has been possible from within the Regional Fertility Centre’s existing resources, it is clear that further expansion will require recurrent funding assurances which, unfortunately, it has not been possible to provide to date in light of the well documented financial pressures facing the entire health service at this time.

“While work continues on planning for full implementation of the NDNA commitment, I want to recognise the team at the Regional Fertility Centre, who have worked incredibly hard to improve treatment waiting times following the COVID-19 pandemic, and to create the capacity to deliver initial increase to one full cycle within the current very limited budget.”

The entitlement will not change for women who achieve a live birth on either, or both, of their fresh and first frozen embryo transfers.

Additional recurrent funding was allocated to the Regional Fertility Centre in 2020/21 to fund the extended eligibility criteria introduced in June 2019 and in anticipation of the increase in provision. A proportion of this funding was utilised to stabilise the waiting lists following the COVID pandemic and is now able to be used to fund the increase to one full cycle for eligible women.

Women can contact the centre via email at rfctreatmentcriteria@belfasttrust.hscni.net or on the centre’s phone line at 02896151292, which will be operational at the following times:

• Tuesday 17:00 – 19:00;
• Thursday 17:00 – 19:00; and
• Saturday 10:00 – 14:00

Commenting on the news that Northern Ireland is widening access to NHS-funded fertility treatment, Hilary Knight Northern Ireland Coordinator with Fertility Network, said: ‘Fertility patients in Northern Ireland will be delighted to hear that women under 40 or possibly 42 if they have not had previous IVF cycles, will now be able to receive one full IVF cycle – previously they were only entitled to one partial IVF cycle comprising one fresh and one frozen embryo transfer. This increase in provision will offer hope to so many women and couples struggling with the distress infertility wreaks and we welcome this news.’

There is a retrospective eligibility date which means that women will be eligible for one full IVF cycle to include all frozen embryos if they were placed on the IVF waiting list on or after 1 October 2022 and they have not been successful on either of their fresh or frozen transfers. ‘We would encourage patients who want to establish if they will be eligible for this increase in IVF provision to contact the special Helpline or email a new contact set up to help patients who are understandably anxious to find out more, said Ms Knight.

In 2020, the then Northern Ireland government committed to moving towards three full cycles of IVF meeting NICE guidelines for fertility treatment, but funding and capacity issues have delayed this. It is hoped that a move towards the three cycles will be implemented in due course and this move to one full IVF cycle will be the first step toward this.

Today’s announcement follows confirmation from the Health Minister earlier this week that his Department is developing a Women’s Health Action Plan which will include fertility and pregnancy.