IVF waiting times in Scotland
Quarter ending 30 September 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. This is an extension to the six-month data lag reported in the previous release, with data for referrals and patients waiting during quarter ending 31 December 2023 now revised.

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 September 2024 however other metrics remain constrained.

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

Main points

• During the quarter ending 30 September 2024, 322 patients were screened. The 90% standard was met, with all patients attending a screening appointment within 52 weeks of referral.
• Although IVF services were impacted at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, by the end of 2020 the number of patients screened had returned to pre-pandemic levels (367 patients). Other than a dip in screening levels between the quarters ending 30 September 2022 and 31 March 2023, they remained at a similar level until the end of 2023. During 2024, however, the pre-pandemic screening level was reached only during the quarter ending 30 June 2024.
• Of all patients screened during the quarter ending 30 September 2024, 54.7% were at the Glasgow IVF Centre, 14.9% at the Edinburgh IVF Centre, 17.4% at the Aberdeen IVF Centre and 13.0% at the Dundee IVF Centre.
• The number of patients waiting across Scotland at 30 September 2024 is unavailable. At 31 January 2024, (the most recent time point for which complete data are available), 839 patients were waiting to attend a screening appointment, 14.8% higher than the monthly average of 2019 prior to the start of the pandemic. There has been some fluctuation in this number since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has remained higher in all months than was observed during 2019.

This stacked bar chart for patients waiting across Scotland shows an increasing number of patients waiting to be screened compared to the pre-pandemic levels. Data for the Glasgow Centre is only available up to 31 January 2024. Following the pause of IVF services due to the pandemic, the waiting list rose to 946 patients at 30 June 2020. Fluctuation in the waiting list size followed before peaking at 995 patients at 31 March 2023. By January 2024, the number waiting had reduced to 839 patients. The number of patients waiting between February and September 2024 is incomplete for Scotland because of unavailable Glasgow IVF Centre data. For the other IVF Centres together (Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh), the waiting list increased to 485 patients at 31 March 2024, before reducing to 440 patients at 30 June 2024, from which point it has remained relatively stable to reach 440 patients again at 30 September 2024.

Close

Monthly trend of number of patients waiting to be screened by IVF Centre, January 2018 to September 2024

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 04 March 2025.