IVF waiting times in Scotland
Quarter ending 30 June 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, some previously published statistics for the Aberdeen IVF Centre have changed for the quarter ending 31 March 2024. Changes to the scheduling of some clinics during February and March 2024 meant that instead of the usual all-in-one appointment, there were two separate parts to the appointment with the time between them up to 4 weeks.  A patient's wait was recorded as complete at the end of the first appointment instead of on completion of both meaning that some waits were under reported by up to 4 weeks for these months.

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 a six-month data lag. PHS can report on the number of patients screened and performance against the waiting time standard, for both the Glasgow IVF Centre and Scotland for the period October 2015 to June 2024. Constraints remain on the reporting of the other metrics for the full time series.

Main points

• During the quarter ending 30 June 2024, 372 patients attended a screening appointment. The 90% standard was met, with all patients screened within 52 weeks of referral.
• Although IVF services were impacted at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, by the end of the 2020, the number of patients screened had returned to pre-pandemic levels. Since then, the number of patients screened per quarter has remained at a similar level to this with the number screened in the latest quarter only slightly higher than the average prior to the pandemic (367 patients).
• Of the patients screened during the quarter ending June 2024, 47.6% were at the Glasgow IVF Centre, 19.6% at the Edinburgh IVF Centre, 17.7% at the Aberdeen IVF Centre and 15.1% at the Dundee IVF Centre.

A stacked bar chart showing the distribution of wait for patients who were screened for IVF treatment, by quarter March 2018 to June 2024. The time bands shown are 0-13 Weeks, 14-26 Weeks, 0-26 Weeks, 27-39 Weeks, 40-52 Weeks and over 52 Weeks. At the quarter ending June 2024, 223 patients waited 0 – 26 weeks, 134 patients waited 27-39 weeks, 15 patients waited 40-52 weeks and no patients waited 52 weeks or more. In comparison during quarter ending June 2018, 81 patients waited 0-13 weeks to be screened, 224 patients waited 14-26 weeks, 68 patients waited 27-39 weeks, 4 patients waited 40-52 weeks and no patients waited 52 weeks or more.

Close

Number of patients screened in each time band across Scotland, January 2018 to June 2024

• The number of patients waiting across Scotland at 30 June 2024 is unavailable. At 31 December 2023 (the most recent time point for which complete data are available), 822 patients were waiting to be screened, 12.4% higher than the monthly average of 2019. There has been some fluctuation in this number since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic but from December 2020, it has remained higher than was observed during 2019.

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 26 November 2024.