Our Chair, Julia Chain, comments on media coverage of our Fertility Trends 2022 report

The HFEA publishes data on fertility treatment to ensure that the public have accurate and impartial information. I am therefore disappointed that some of the media coverage of our report this week used our data to ‘blame’ women for delaying motherhood – or to mistakenly accuse the HFEA of doing so.

Nowhere in our Fertility Trends 2022 report does it reference people not being able to find a partner, or people delaying starting a family for social reasons, as a reason why people are starting fertility treatment later. Instead, we attributed the higher average age of starting treatment to delays across the NHS due to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in gynaecology, which has likely led to delays in some patients accessing fertility services, as well as difficulty in getting referrals to specialist treatment, and the cost of living crisis leading to being ‘priced out’ of starting fertility treatment. We know that additional factors, including lack of affordable childcare, have led to very difficult choices about when to start a family. That in turn might also lead people to delay accessing fertility treatment.

Fertility treatment is the only area of healthcare where a majority of patients are paying for treatment themselves. Patients are having to make difficult and expensive choices about medical care. A survey of patients by Fertility Network UK found that the cost of living was ‘pricing fertility patients out of the chance to become parents’.

Our data shows the average age of starting treatment is 35.1 years. IVF is one of the most invasive and expensive treatments. It is likely that patients have gone through years of heartache and stress in trying to have a family before reaching the point at which they start treatment.

The HFEA offers impartial information on our website to people in a range of different situations – we do not judge, blame or criticise those who are accessing treatment at any stage.