IVF waiting times in Scotland
Quarter ending 31 March 2025

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 a six-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 March 2025 however other metrics remain constrained. See the full report for more data quality information.

Main points

• During the quarter ending 31 March 2025, 353 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 March 2025, 49.0% were at the Glasgow IVF Centre, 20.4% at the Dundee IVF Centre, 17.0% at the Aberdeen IVF Centre and 13.6% at the Edinburgh IVF Centre.
• All patients were screened within 26 weeks at the Aberdeen IVF Centre, while all patients at the Dundee IVF Centre and 90.2% of patients at the Glasgow IVF Centre were screened within 39 weeks. In contrast, most patients at the Edinburgh IVF Centre (77.1%) waited between 40 and 52 weeks to attend a screening appointment.
• 15.3% of patients screened during the quarter ending 31 March 2025 waited between 40 and 52 weeks from referral. This is the highest proportion of patients who experienced this length of wait since the quarter ending 31 March 2021 (21.3%).
• The number of patients waiting across Scotland at 31 March 2025 is unavailable. At 30 September 2024, (the most recent time point for which complete data are available), 753 patients were waiting to attend a screening appointment. At the Aberdeen IVF Centre 95.6% of patients had been waiting 26 weeks or less and at the Dundee IVF Centre all patients had been waiting 39 weeks or less. A small proportion of patients had been waiting between 40 and 52 weeks at the Edinburgh IVF Centre (0.4%), Glasgow IVF Centre (1.1%) and the Aberdeen IVF Centre (1.4%). There were no patients waiting 52 weeks or more.

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 September 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 September 2024, 422 patients were waiting 0-13 weeks to be screened, 215 patients were waiting 14-26 weeks, 111 patients were waiting 27-39 weeks, 5 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 26 August 2025.