Women in South-West England are only able to access one partial cycle of NHS-funded IVF despite the NICE Guideline recommending three full cycles. PET was delighted when the BBC's Jen Smith decided to bring public attention to this inequity.
As well as producing an item discussing the issue for the television programme BBC South West Spotlight, Smith wrote an article to accompany it.
In the article entitled 'Why are we given only one chance to have a baby?' Smith outlined the difficulties people have accessing IVF in the South West. Using a combination of research from PET and case studies she makes a compelling case for increasing the number of cycles and embryo transfers across the whole of the South-West.
'It's particularly cruel to only offer a partial round', Sarah Norcross – director of PET (the Progress Educational Trust) – told the BBC. 'There is so much pressure on that one cycle and on those two transfers... If it could just be made a full round, it would be a great step forward.'
PET will continue to monitor the provision of IVF in the South West as part of its routine updates to the PET NHS Fertility Funding Tracker.