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PETBioNewsCommentImproving quality of care for IVF patients

BioNews

Improving quality of care for IVF patients

Published 3 March 2014 posted in Comment and appears in BioNews 744

Author

Peter Thompson

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.

IVF in the UK is thriving. But is it as good as it could be? We at the HFEA want to think about how we can get the best out of the IVF sector in the UK...

In 2012, the IVF sector in the UK helped to bring about 17,673 IVF births
and 1,800 donor-conception births, the happy outcome of nearly 68,000 cycles of
treatment. That's in a context of declining multiple birth rates, which the
sector brought about without significantly affecting success rates for
patients.

IVF in the UK is thriving. But is it as good as it could be? Could the
quality of care be higher? Could success rates increase further? Most
importantly, do patients and donors feel well cared for in the clinic? And do
they, and the children they produce, feel well-supported in the years that
follow treatment?

At the HFEA, these questions are now uppermost in our minds. With the
future of IVF regulation clear, we want to think about how we can help to get
the best out of the IVF sector in the UK. As the IVF regulator, we clearly need
to do our core business - inspection, licensing, providing donor information -
well. That will always preoccupy us. But an effective regulator should surely do
much more than checking compliance with requirements.

We’ve started to think about what that 'more' should be. Unsurprisingly,
we believe that the quality of care for patients is what matters most. With this
in mind, we have set out our strategic goals:

  • The patient: We will put patients' interests and safety first.
  • Donor conception: We will improve the lifelong experience for
    donors, donor conceived people, patients using donor conception, and their
    wider families.
  • Quality: We will work with clinics to improve quality of care for
    the direct benefit of patients.

Earlier this month we published a consultation to
help us develop these goals into a concrete set of priorities. We've come up
with some ideas which we started to test out at our recent conference. For
those who couldn’t make the conference, the presentations from the day are
available on our conference microsite, which we will
add to over time.

One of the issues we want to consider is whether patient feedback about
their experience of treatment in a particular clinic should be used to improve
services. Clinics obviously ask patients directly and make changes to their
service in response to their feedback. Around the date of a clinic's
inspection, we also ask for patient feedback about their experience of
treatment: whether they were given the right information and an opportunity to
see a counsellor and whether they were treated with dignity. We use the
findings to help us assess the clinic's performance and compliance and we
summarise our findings in an inspection report which is published on our
website.

It's unlikely that prospective patients, when choosing a clinic, look at
a clinic's performance in that much detail. After all, their main concern is
the clinic's success rate. But shouldn't patients have richer information on
which to base their decision? We know that many patients come to our website to
use our Choose a Fertility Clinic tool — 15,000 a month do so. If they were
able to see feedback from fellow patients about a clinic — whether live and
unmoderated or aggregated from questionnaires — that would give them more to go
on. And, importantly, it might improve the quality of care in all clinics. If
clinics know that patients are choosing a clinic not just on clinical outcomes,
but also on patient feedback, it would sharpen their focus on the experience of
treatment, rather than merely the outcome.

In other areas of our lives, we are increasingly using such tools to
make choices about the public services we use and the things that we buy.
Should such an approach be used in IVF? You can give us your view by taking
part in our consultation and completing the questionnaire by 28 March 2014.

Related Articles

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
Comment
31 October 2014 • 3 minutes read

Choosing a fertility clinic - what information is important?

by Nick Jones

The HFEA will soon modernise its website and redesign Choose a Fertility Clinic - the website's online database enabling patients to access clinics success rates, treatments options and inspection reports. But before we start, we are seeking views on some thorny issues...

Image by Bill Sanderson via the Wellcome Collection, © Wellcome Trust Ltd 1990. Depicts Laocoön and his family (from Greek and Roman mythology) entwined in coils of DNA.
Image by Bill Sanderson via the Wellcome Collection, © Wellcome Trust Ltd 1990. Depicts Laocoön and his family entwined in coils of DNA (based on the figure of Laocoön from Greek and Roman mythology).
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16 December 2013 • 1 minute read

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The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has announced the appointment of Sally Cheshire as its interim chair when Professor Lisa Jardine's term as chair comes to an end in January 2014....

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
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15 November 2013 • 4 minutes read

HFEA loses legal battle on enforcement of multiple birth quotas

by Dr Antony Starza-Allen

The UK's High Court has ruled against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority saying its actions towards two clinics over a licence condition to impose a maximum multiple birth rate were unlawful. The HFEA has now decided to withdraw the condition from all UK fertility clinics' licences...

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
News
28 October 2013 • 2 minutes read

Lisa Jardine to step down as chair of fertility regulator

by Sandy Starr

Professor Lisa Jardine has announced that she is due to step down as chair of the UK's fertility and embryo research regulator, the HFEA, in January 2014...

Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
CC0 1.0
Image by Alan Handyside via the Wellcome Collection. Depicts a human egg soon after fertilisation, with the two parental pronuclei clearly visible.
News
19 July 2013 • 2 minutes read

HFEA will remain independent, says UK Government

by Cait McDonagh

The Department of Health has announced that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority will remain the independent regulator of assisted reproduction and embryology research in the UK...

Image by Dr Christina Weis. © Christina Weis
Image by Dr Christina Weis. © Christina Weis
Comment
7 May 2013 • 4 minutes read

The HFEA gets into gear on surrogacy

by Natalie Gamble

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) voted on 20 March 2013 to update the guidance it gives to UK fertility clinics on surrogacy. It is a welcome decision that will mean better support for the growing numbers of families created through surrogacy in the UK....

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