Couples struggling to conceive are being offered controversial ‘baby deals’ – as many rounds of IVF as they need to get pregnant or their money back if the treatment fails.
With many cash-strapped NHS trusts now limiting IVF, some couples spend tens of thousands of pounds on unsuccessful private fertility treatments.
But Northamptonshire-based company Access Fertility will next week start offering an ‘all you can treat’ IVF policy, with the promise of a refund if the couple do not conceive after two years.
Couples will pay an upfront fee starting at £9,000 for as many cycles of treatment as they want within two years, including IVF or ICSI, a procedure to compensate for poor quality sperm. A single cycle of each usually costs between £3,000 and £5,000.
Baby Kayleigh, was born after 23 years of Carolyn Lipczynski trying to fall pregnant. Kayleigh’s mother took out a £10,000 loan to pay for her
Women must be under the age of 38 when they start treatment and use their own eggs. All expenses are covered, except the costs of medicines, which can vary from a few hundred pounds per cycle to more than £1,000.
Access Fertility founder Ash Carroll-Miller, who developed the company’s Unlimited IVF Programme, said: ‘Pay-as-you-go IVF can be expensive. We want to make the process as simple and secure as we possibly can.
‘By offering unlimited treatment for two years with a 100 per cent refund promise, the patient knows exactly where they stand.’
Frozen sperm in the fertility lab at St Mary’s Hospital in Manchester. There is now an ‘all you can treat deal’ being offered in Nottinghamshire
But critics fear that it will put pressure on women to ‘cram in’ more treatment than is good for them.
Geeta Nargund, an NHS gynaecologist and medical director of the Create Fertility private clinics, said: ‘This group of women is likely to have a high success rate with only one IVF cycle. The starting cost of £9,000 doesn’t include drugs, which could add thousands of pounds for multiple cycles.’
Her clinic offers IVF treatment from £2,500, including drugs.
According to fertility regulator the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, on average 23 per cent of couples have a baby after a single attempt at IVF.