Our Director of Strategy and Corporate Affairs, Clare Ettinghausen, comments on the upcoming donor compensation increase

Every year, around 1 in 170 of all children born in the UK are conceived through donation of egg or sperm. Without a donor, many families wouldn't have been able to have a much-wanted baby.

Donating eggs, sperm or embryos to someone else is a serious commitment with lifelong implications, such as the fact donors must be comfortable that any children born from their donation can find out identifiable information about their donor when they turn 18.

The current value of donor compensation was set after the HFEA carried out a large-scale public consultation on its donation policies in October 2011. In this, we sought views from the public, donors, clinics, and other interested parties on various donor issues, including compensation. We also carried out a thorough ethical review.

The HFEA agreed a set of principles, to ensure a balance was found between compensating donors without crossing the boundary into what could be considered monetisation, while making sure that donation should remain an altruistic act, and also that there weren’t any unjustifiable barriers to donation – such as making it unaffordable for some people to donate. Our Code of Practice sets out that donors may be compensated with a fixed amount of money, which reasonably covers any financial losses incurred donating eggs or sperm to a clinic.

A rise in inflation means that donor compensation rates no longer reflect the intended compensation for time and expenses when the rates were originally set – prompting our Authority (Board) to re-examine donor compensation amounts earlier this year and introduce new rates:

• Egg donors: £985 (an increase from £750)
• Sperm donors: £45 per clinic visit (an increase from £35)

There are very good reasons behind making sure that donation is an altruistic act. A financial inducement, for example, may impact on the safety of patients and the future child, if it motivated donors to make claims about their health or genetic background in order to successfully donate. The new compensation rates aim to maintain these values, while recognising that costs have increased since 2011.

Academic research in the UK has consistently found that donating eggs and sperm is driven by altruism to help others to create much longed-for families. Choosing to become a donor, however, is a complex decision that should not be taken lightly, because of the implications for the donor and their wider family, the recipient, and any child born as a result.

The process of donating eggs is generally very safe but, like any invasive medical procedure, it carries some risk and a donor would need to commit to multiple visits to a clinic over the course of the donation cycle. In the UK, we have strict laws and rules to ensure patients are treated safely, and we have close regulatory oversight of licensed clinics to do everything possible to keep patients safe. UK clinics are required by law to ensure that donors, patients, and any future children are protected by carrying out rigorous health tests, ensuring legal parenthood consents are in place, and offering everyone involved counselling.

We also work closely with clinics to do everything possible to prevent and manage Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS), with recent figures showing severe or critical cases occur in less than 0.1% of UK cycles.

Moving forwards, donor compensation rates will be reviewed by the HFEA every five years, or when economic measures have shown a ten per cent increase in inflation, whichever occurs sooner.

The emphasis will continue to remain on altruism and helping people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to have a baby.

Free and impartial information about egg donation and sperm donation can be found on our website.