IVF & The NHS
Charles Kingsland is a Consultant Gynaecologist and Specialist in Reproductive Medicine.
Charles has 30+ years experience in this field alongside lecturing in the subject. With an international reputation, Charles has been instrumental in negotiating funding within IVF across England and Wales. Having performed many thousands of IVF cycles in his career, Charles is an expert in all areas of infertility and it’s treatments.
In this article, Charles comments on the NHS and IVF.
“With fertility treatment, it’s very, very high profile, but very low priority when it comes to funding in the National Health Service.
If you want a story that will sell newspapers, put in a fertility story.
However, when it comes to funding within the NHS, fertility issues are always low priority, and that’s why we have this system in this country where depending on where you live influences whether you’re going to get fertility funding.
So you may live in an area where there is no funding. You may live in an area where there is plenty of funding. But it’s simply not a fair system.
In fact, when the first baby was born within the National Health Service following IVF, there was such a public outcry about babies being grown in test tubes within the National Health Service. The whole programme of IVF went underground, but we all knew that it was very beneficial and the demand would be great, so it was no longer funded in the NHS. The only natural outlet was in the private sector, and that’s where it grew up.”
You can see the whole video series here on the Assured Fertility YouTube Channel.
If you have any questions or would like to arrange to speak to a fertility specialist, call us on 0333 234 0895 now.
