MP aims to bring online fertility services under HFEA

The UK parliament has heard a proposal to extend the fertility regulator's powers to include regulation of online service providers.

Dame Caroline Dinenage, Conservative MP and chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, introduced the proposal to the House of Commons under Parliament's ten-minute rule. The proposed Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Regulation) bill would extend the powers of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which regulates and licenses fertility treatment in clinics in the UK, to also cover online providers of fertility and ancillary services in the sector. The proposal follows recent news of collapse of online provider Apricity Fertility, which highlighted these gaps in regulation (see BioNews 1272).

Introducing the proposals, Dinenage repeated concerns raised by the HFEA, which said: 'For some time a range of activities marketed as fertility treatments have taken place outside of HFEA licensed clinics in a variety of settings, including 'wellness' clinics. More recently, the fertility market has started to move online, in settings which are outside of the regulated scheme.'

She added that the fertility sector has changed significantly since the first regulation was introduced in 35 years ago, as recent figures show that one in every 32 children in the UK is now conceived through IVF and 73 percent of IVF cycles are now privately-funded (see BioNews 1295). However, legislation remains largely unchanged since the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990.

Dinenage emphasised the urgency to update the legislation due to the recent unexpected closure of online fertility clinic Apricity. She said: 'The case of Apricity has underscored the urgent need to safeguard patients' rights to their data, their eggs and their sperm.'

The online fertility service provided advice and support to patients and directed them to partner clinics for fertility treatments, but closed unexpectedly in January 2025, leaving patients uncertain about the future of their treatment. At the time of closing, Apricity assured customers that its licensed partner clinics would continue to provide ongoing gamete storage and fertility treatment. However, as a 'virtual' clinic, Apricity itself was not regulated by the HFEA, which oversees physical clinics.

'Families who had signed up to Apricity were not offered the peace of mind that a regulator provides, because it was not regulated; it was an unlicensed online clinic,' said Dinenage. 'That means that the health and advice on offer could have been complete rubbish and could have been backed by no expert knowledge at all – and such online services are expanding in scope and number.'

The bill is set to be read a second time on 12 September 2025.