In response to recent media coverage, please find below clarification on the CCG's position regarding the funding of IVF.

The CCG has been open and clear about the funding that is required to be able to commission IVF for couples in the Vale of York and maintains the estimated cost previously cited.  This is based upon prevalence data that highlights approximately 100 couples will request IVF this year along with the anticipated same number of couples per year that will come forward from the non-commissioning period of 2010-2014.

Based on these numbers, the cost to the local health economy could be as much as £2 million. This figure is based the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) Fertility: assessment and treatment for people with fertility problems, Costing Template 2013.

The template is based on estimates of the number of women in the Vale of York

• aged 18-39 of which there are 50,938
• those aged 40-42, a total of 7,374

This generated an annual recurrent cost of £288,514 and a non-recurrent cost from the reduction in time spent trying to conceive spontaneously from 3 years to 2 years of £91,927. These estimates are based on a population of circa 333k (based on national figures) of which a proportion of NHS funded treatments is estimated to be 50%.
The total cost that the CCG could be open to is therefore a five year back log of cases at £288,514 per year plus the current year activity of £288,514 and a non-recurrent amount of £91,927. This is a total of £1,823,011, hence the quoted figures by the CCG of an estimated £2 million coupled with the uncertainty around the scale of the backlog of couples waiting.

The £2m figure is based upon the cost of specialist subfertility investigations, counselling, fertility drugs, pre-treatment screening, semen analysis, full assessment and pre-treatment information session, stimulation medication, appropriate ultrasounds, pre-egg recovery counselling, Urine BHCG, early pregnancy scans and the freezing and storage of embryos - for one average IVF cycle.

IVF is continuously under review and as highlighted previously, the CCG will be discussing the commissioning of IVF again at the December 2014 Governing Body.

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