IVF waiting times in Scotland
Quarter ending 31 December 2024

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides an update on how long eligible patients waited from referral to a screening appointment for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment by the NHS in Scotland. The standard is for 90% of eligible patients to be screened at an IVF Centre within 52 weeks of receipt of a referral from a secondary care/acute consultant.

In this release fully comprehensive data for the Glasgow IVF Centre continues to be unavailable because the process for recording referrals impacts the timely recording of adding patients to their waiting list resulting in an eight-month data lag.

PHS can report on the number of patients screened and performance against the waiting time standard in this release, for both the Glasgow IVF Centre and Scotland as whole, for the period October 2015 to December 2024 however other metrics remain constrained.

A full dataset is published for the 3 other IVF Centres (Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh), except for the number of patients waiting and their length of wait at 31 December 2019 for the Edinburgh IVF Centre. See the full report for more information.

Main points

• During the quarter ending 31 December 2024, 347 patients were screened. The 90% standard was met, with all patients attending a screening appointment within 52 weeks of referral.
• Of all patients screened during the quarter ending 31 December 2024, 49.3% were at the Glasgow IVF Centre, 18.7% at the Aberdeen IVF Centre, 18.2% at the Dundee IVF Centre and 13.8% at the Edinburgh IVF Centre.
• All patients were screened within 26 weeks at the Aberdeen IVF Centre, while most patients were screened within 39 weeks at the other 3 IVF Centres (98.4% Dundee; 94.2% Glasgow and 87.6% Edinburgh).
• The number of patients waiting across Scotland at 31 December 2024 is unavailable. At 30 April 2024, (the most recent time point for which complete data are available), 793 patients were waiting to attend a screening appointment. Of these, all patients were waiting within 13 weeks of referral at the Aberdeen IVF Centre and within 39 weeks at the Edinburgh IVF Centre. A small proportion of patients (1.5% or less) were waiting between 40 and 52 weeks of referral at the Dundee and Glasgow IVF Centres.

A stacked bar chart for Scotland showing the distribution of waiting times for patients who were waiting at month end for IVF treatment, by month January 2019 to April 2024. The time bands shown are 0-13 Weeks, 14-26 Weeks, 27-39 Weeks, 40-52 Weeks and over 52 Weeks. At the month ending 30 April 2024, 411 patients were waiting 0-13 weeks to be screened, 269 patients were waiting 14-26 weeks, 107 patients were waiting 27-39 weeks, 6 patients were waiting 40-52 weeks and no patients were waiting 52 weeks or more. Patient waiting data was not provided for 31 January 2019 by the Edinburgh IVF Centre and therefore a Scotland patient waiting figure is unavailable. In comparison at 28 February 2019, 325 patients were waiting 0-13 weeks to be screened, 231 patients were waiting 14-26 weeks, 87 patients were waiting 27-39 weeks, 6 patients were waiting 40-52 weeks and no patients were waiting 52 weeks or more.

Close

Monthly trend of number of patients waiting to be screened across Scotland by time band.

Background

IVF is an effective method of assisted reproductive technology used to treat infertility. This includes intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) for male infertility. Where this publication refers to IVF, it includes IVF and ICSI. One full cycle of IVF includes ovulation induction, egg retrieval, fertilisation and transfer of fresh embryos, followed by freezing of suitable embryos and subsequent replacement of these provided the couple still fulfil the access criteria.

Each NHS Board in Scotland commissions cycles of IVF from one of the four specialist tertiary Centres providing NHS treatment (Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow).

Further information

The next release of this publication will be 27 May 2025.