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Closed Commission a review of fertility treatment for same-sex/LGBTQ+ couples

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The Government should review fertility treatment in England to ensure equality of access for LGBT+ and same-sex couples, and to make treatment consistent with Wales & Scotland.

This review should investigate:

- Whether sufficient support for home insemination is available

- The application of NICE guidelines by CCGs

- How the apparent ‘postcode lottery’ in fertility treatment can be ended

Reports suggest that some CCGs are forcing LGBTQ+ couples & single women to self-fund artificial inseminations in expensive private clinics to ‘prove infertility’, before they qualify for help. However most heterosexual couples qualify after 2 years of unprotected sex, which holds no additional financial cost. It feels discriminatory to force LGBTQ+ people to use private clinics if they want to access safe, medically-screened sperm, or risk more dangerous routes, or give up on hopes of creating a family.

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  • Related activity

    New Women's Health Strategy published by the Government

    On Wednesday 20 July the Government published the first ever Women's Health Strategy for England. This document sets out the results of the consultation the Government ran in 2021 on women's health, and the actions it is taking to improve the health of women and girls.

    The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Steve Barclay MP, made a statement on the Strategy and took questions from MPs in the House of Commons, to coincide with the publication of the strategy.

    The Secretary of State's statement outlined the key ambitions and elements of the Strategy. These include:

    • Ensuring that women are better listened to in the NHS
    • Better access to services for all women and girls
    • Addressing the lack of research into women’s health conditions
    • Better information and education on issues relating to women’s health
    • Targeted action on specific areas such as fertility treatment, pregnancy loss, and female-specific health conditions such as endometriosis.

    Actions the Government has said it will take to help achieve these goals include introducing mandatory teaching and assessment on women’s health for all graduating medical students and incoming doctors, and undertaking new research and data gathering to increase understanding of women's health issues.

    You can read the Strategy in full on the UK Government website. The Strategy only covers England as government policy on health matters is devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

    Commitments on fertility care

    The Strategy commits the Government to working with NHS England to address geographical variation in access to NHS-funded fertility services across England. This includes more equitable access to fertility services for female same-sex couples, and an end to non-clinical eligibility criteria used by some Clinical Commissioning Groups.

    It also states that the Government will explore publishing data nationally on the provision and availability of IVF, to drive greater transparency of the provision of IVF services across the country.

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  • Petition closed

  • Petition published

    This petition can now be signed.

    If this petition gets 10,000 signatures, government will respond to it.

    If this petition gets 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament.

    This petition will stay open until 29 December 2021.