Time to celebrate in the East of England

Anyone who needs fertility treatment and lives in the East of England should be celebrating today with the announcement that the area is to be the first to fully implement the guidelines on fertility treatment and offer three full cycles of IVF.

This fantastic news will offer new hope to many couples living in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire. There are some criteria, but unlike those used by many other primary care trusts, these are perfectly reasonable - the female partner must be between the ages of 23 and 39, they should not smoke and there should be no existing children from the current relationship.

The funding will start next April - just five years after the initial guideline from the National Institute of Clinical Health and Excellence which recommended that all primary care trusts should be funding three full cycles of treatment. It may have taken time, but maybe now more trusts will realise that these guidelines are meant to be followed rather than ignored, and perhaps couples in other parts of the country will eventually be able to access the treatment they need.

You can read the full details of the proposals for the East of England at www.eoe.nhs.uk/news