Thanks to Herts and Essex Fertility Centre

I just wanted to thank the team at Herts and Essex Fertility Centre for inviting me along as a guest speaker this evening to talk about coping with the emotional aspects of infertility and treatment. I was amazed to see such a good turnout - and especially impressed at how many men had turned up on a night when England were playing a football match! It was great to meet so many really lovely people and to be able to share experiences, and I hope that other clinics will be inspired by the guest speaker programme at Herts and Essex as it's a brilliant idea and clearly much appreciated by patients.

When success rates aren't all they seem...

In the UK, the HFEA doesn't just regulate fertility clinics, but also provides patients with accurate information about treatments and about IVF success rates. We often take this for granted, but a story I've just been reading about fertility clinics in Canada may make you realise quite how fortunate we are to know that the success rates produced by the HFEA have been checked and clinics monitored.

It seems that in Canada, success rates are produced by an organisation which is run by the clinics themselves, and the clinics submit their own data with no checking or monitoring. Apparently this has led to a situation where clinics only submit the figures they choose to post - and where eight individual clinics are all claiming to be at the top of the league tables.

Given the current uncertainty about the future of the HFEA, this illustrates quite how important a role the authority plays in providing patients with accurate information about clinics.

You can read more about the story here