IVF waiting times in Scotland
Quarter ending 30 June 2026

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides a quarterly update on how long patients waited from referral to a screening appointment for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment by the NHS in one of Scotland's four specialist centres in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh or Glasgow. The Scottish Government's national 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 or an acute consultant.

The number of patients screened and performance against the IVF waiting time standard are reported up to 30 June 2026 for Scotland and all IVF centres. All other data at a Scotland level are available up to 30 April 2026 only.

At the Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow IVF Centres, the process to review referrals and add patients to the waiting list means that data for the quarter ending 30 June 2026 are incomplete at the time they were extracted from the national warehouse for this release.

Further information is available in the Data Quality section of the full report.

Main points

• During the quarter ending 30 June 2026, 360 patients were screened. The 90% standard was met, with all patients attending a screening appointment within 52 weeks of referral.
• There has been variation in screening levels in recent quarters with the figure in the quarter ending 31 March 2026 (407 patients), the highest since the start of 2022. While the number screened in this quarter (360) is lower, it is similar to the quarterly figures between April 2024 and March 2025.
• All patients were screened within 26 weeks at the Aberdeen IVF Centre and most patients at the Dundee IVF Centre also experienced a wait of this length (96.9%). This proportion was much lower at the Glasgow and Edinburgh IVF Centres (28.1% and 17.3% respectively).
• 16.9% of patients screened during the quarter ending 30 June 2026 waited between 40 and 52 weeks from referral, lower than in the quarter ending 31 March 2026 (19.9%). The majority were at the Edinburgh IVF Centre.
• At 30 April 2026 1,133 patients were waiting to attend a screening appointment, the highest number in the time series. Of these, 44.8% had been waiting 13 weeks or less, 29.0% had been waiting between 14 and 26 weeks, 24.4% between 27 and 39 weeks and 1.7% between 40 and 52 weeks. There were no patients waiting more than 52 weeks.

A stacked bar chart showing the distribution of wait for patients who were screened for IVF treatment, quarter ending 31 March 2022 to quarter ending 30 June 2026. The time bands shown are 0-13 Weeks, 14-26 Weeks, 27-39 Weeks, 40-52 Weeks and over 52 Weeks. At the quarter ending 30 June 2026, 108 patients waited 0–13 weeks, 46 patients waited 14-26 weeks, 145 patients waited 27-39 weeks, 61 patients waited 40-52 weeks and no patients waited 52 weeks or more. In comparison during quarter ending 31 March 2022, 138 patients waited 0-13 weeks to be screened, 75 patients waited 14-26 weeks, 209 patients waited 27-39 weeks, 1 patient waited 40-52 weeks and no patients waited 52 weeks or more.

Close

Quarterly trend of number of patients 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).

This is the fourth release of statistics following the implementation of the Scottish Government's revised Waiting Times Guidance which was published in December 2023 and implemented by PHS in July 2025. Our analysis shows minimal impact on IVF Waiting Times and therefore trend analysis across the time series is considered to be comparable. More information is available in the full report.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be 24 November 2026.