Health body exploring whether single women could receive IVF on NHS

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., external

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.