Oxfordshire petition

It's one of those areas of the country with a completely nonsensical IVF funding policy - where only older women, who are less likely to be successful, qualify for NHS help. In Oxfordshire, you have to be 35 to be eligible for funded treatment - and so one couple who would have to wait nine years to qualify have started a petition to call on the local Primary Care Trust to change their policy.

It certainly can't be seen as cost effective to be funding treatment only when there is less chance of it working, but this kind of rationing helps keep waiting lists low and ensures many couples simply have to pay for their own treatment whilst still allowing health officials to claim that they are offering funding for IVF. The government's guidance is that up to three cycles of funded treatment should be offered to eligible couples where the woman is under 40, but in reality this is not happening in much of the country.

The couple who started the petition in Oxfordshire were told that their chances of success if they had IVF now would be 50%, but if they waited until they were eligible for funding, they'd only have a 24% chance of the treatment working. Surely the argument for a change of policy could not be clearer. You can sign the petition at gopetition.co.uk/online/26607.html and you can read more about the story in the Oxford Mail at www.oxfordmail.co.uk