IVF on BBC Breakfast News

We are clearly more conscious of it at the moment, but IVF news seems to be eveywhere. Just this morning I switched on the television to be greeted with a piece regarding IVF treatment in the UK.

They were concerning themselves with the fact that 30 years after Louise Brown, the first 'test tube baby' (the common term for IVF, given because the egg is fertilised in a test tube) was born and how the UK lags behind the rest of Europe in the provision of treatment. They were discussing how it seems amazing that the country that pioneered the treatment cannot provide a clear and unambiguous policy on the provision across the country's 105 Trusts. In some areas (nine in total) patients can get treatement that follows Government and NICE guidelines (three courses of IVF). In many others patients can get one or two courses, some with restictions on eligibility such as insisting that one or both partners are non-smokers or that the female partner should be under 35 years old. Others insist the female partner must be OVER 36 years old.

It is utter madness - insist the female should be over 36 years old before she is allowed the treatment - the time of her life when she is becoming, statistically, much less likely to actually succeed wih treatment.

Let's hope that the media attention will make North Yorkshire PCT, along with the other four PCTs that do not provide the service, to sit up and take notice.

I can't say I am holding out much hope though.