Fertility group exploring whether single women could get IVF on NHS (2024)

Work is under way to explore whether single women could receive IVF for free on the NHS, the BBC has learned.

Currently only couples who meet certain criteria are eligible.

However there is demand among single people, including Daniela Scott who paid £43,000 on private fertility treatment in Scotland and Spain.

The Edinburgh restaurateur, who cannot conceive naturally, had three unsuccessful rounds of IVF before becoming pregnant with her son, Leone - who was born in March.

"I'm very fortunate that I own my house because I was able to take equity out of my home to pay for it," the 39-year-old said.

"They [the NHS] won't even look at me because I'm single."

Daniela had her first round of IVF at a private clinic in Glasgow spending around £10,000. The process produced four embryos but was ultimately unsuccessful.

She tried twice more spending a further £20,000, again unsuccessfully.

"I couldn't bear it," she said. "I didn't want to spend Christmas with anybody and I'm a very upbeat, confident, 'let's do it' type of girl but I was broken after the third round.

"I thought 'What am I going to do? I have £10,000 left, I'm devastated, what if it doesn't work?'"

One of Daniela's friends then found a doctor in a private clinic in Alicante, Spain, who had a high IVF success rate.

She stayed in Spain for three weeks to have the treatment and she fell pregnant.

Leone Dante Murray Scott was born on 18 March 2024 by Caesarean section at St John's Hospital in West Lothian.

Daniela said: "I heard crying and I said to my mum 'What's that noise? And my mum burst out crying and said 'It's your son. You've done it.

"It was like a relief, there are no words to describe it.

"I've always wanted a child, always, I feel like I was born to be a mum and now he's here."

Each year about 7,000 couples in Scotland are referred to the NHS for IVF, with about 4,300 treatments performed in the four fertility centres in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

They are eligible for the treatment if they have been living in a stable relationship for two years and neither have been sterilised.

The criteria also stipulates that at least one of the couple has no living biological children and that they have a BMI above 18.5 and below 30.

They are not allowed to smoke, drink alcohol or take drugs during the treatment and the woman has to be under 42 years old.

Same-sex couples must also have had six failed cycles of donor insemination.

There is also demand among single people, albeit much smaller - just over 2,800 single people in the UK had IVF in 2021, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

Work to explore whether the treatment could be offered to single people on the NHS in Scotland is now at an early stage.

The Scottish government said the National Fertility Group - which is a group of fertility experts from the NHS, charities and government bodies - have asked Public Health Scotland to model the eligibility, demand and cost implications of the move.

The group will then make recommendations to ministers on the matter.

The UK government said IVF treatment was a matter for individual health boards.

For example, for women in south west London to be eligible they need to be infertile and have had 12 cycles of unstimulated intrauterine insemination (IUI) over at least 12 months.

Richard Anderson, professor of clinical reproductive science at Edinburgh University, welcomed the move saying it was a "very positive step".

He said: "Resources for IVF have been limited and often couples with classical infertility have had to wait very long times for treatment and it's always been regarded that they ought to be the priority for IVF treatments.

"It's essentially cost and resource related."

Mr Anderson added that there are single women who are certain they want to get pregnant.

He said: "It's very much a conscious decision that they make with a lot of thought and support from their friends and families.

"And the evidence is they do fine, so there's no real reason why they shouldn't."

Daniela, who was married until 2015, added: "I would like people to recognise that there are single women out there who want a child but can't afford to go private because it is very expensive.

"I would do it again if I had the money but I don't have another £10,000.

"I'm going to tell Leone how much he was loved, how much he was prayed for, how much he was wanted.

"It's an overwhelming love. It's a love that's so powerful in so many ways. Every time I look at him I think 'I did that and I never gave up'. "