Whether you qualify for NHS-funded IVF doesn't just depend on where you live in the UK, it can also depend on your personal circumstances. Women who are overweight, who are over a certain age or under another, couples or single women who need donor eggs or sperm may all find that their situation makes them ineligible. In many areas, having an existing child from a previous relationship means that you won't qualify for NHS help.
If both you and your partner have been in previous relationships and you have one or more young children from either of those relationships living with you in your home, discovering that you don't qualify for fertility treatment may be upsetting as you'd like a child together, but you do have "an existing child". However, what about a woman whose partner has an adult "child" from a previous relationship? She may have absolutely no contact with that young person and it's a very different scenario - yet she will also be deemed ineligible for treatment by many PCTs.
Fertility patients understand that these are difficult financial times and the NHS doesn't have unlimited funds, but is it really right to make up rules which treat people unfairly in order to disguise the fact that fertility treatment is rationed?
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