Fertility inequality: How single women are facing IVF discrimination and financial strain
Nicole Collarbone never thought she would be a single mother, but as she neared her 40th birthday, she knew she no longer wanted to wait to meet a partner to have a baby.
She decided to have IVF with a sperm donor, but with the steep price of fertility treatment, and no one to share the costs with, Nicole hoped she could get at least part of it on the NHS.
But she was told that because she was single, she didn’t qualify for any fertility treatment on the health service.
“I was gutted,” she said. “It was just such a definitive no. And I had expected maybe something, you know, that we’d explore it a little bit more. There’d be more explanation around the funding, but it was just a no.”
Nicole borrowed money from her family and is now pregnant with her first child.
“I was so dependent on them being able to contribute that if they couldn’t, then I wouldn’t have been able to go down this route.”
Nicole Collarbone
She is among a rising number of single women choosing solo motherhood, with a 44% increase in women with no partner doing IVF between 2019 and 2021 according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.
But those who cannot afford private treatment have to tackle barriers in the health service which, according to one legal expert, discriminate against them.
Over half of NHS England integrated care boards, which decide on who can get fertility treatment locally, don’t include single women in IVF policies at all.
The rest require them to spend thousands of pounds to prove infertility, by paying privately for between three and 12 cycles of artificial insemination.
It is a less invasive fertility treatment that is about a third as effective as IVF, where a cycle costs between £700 and £1,600.
If that fails, a single woman can be considered for IVF on the NHS.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Has anything changed for single women?
Read more:
Fertility treatment ‘add-ons’ to be graded by watchdog
Fertility treatments on the up, but not via NHS
In comparison, heterosexual couples are asked if they have been trying to conceive for two years.
Female same sex couples also have to prove infertility, but the government has committed to fund artificial insemination for them as part of the Women’s Health Strategy, created in part to level up access to IVF.
There’s no such commitment for single women though, who will still have to pay, creating an unlevel playing field according Atina Krajewska, professor in human rights law at Birmingham University.
“In my view, single women should be treated similarly to same sex couples, because inevitably they are in a similar situation when it comes to their ability to conceive,” she said.
“I would see this as a discriminatory treatment based on international human rights provisions.
“Those who can afford private treatment will be affected, but not to the same extent, eventually they might just decide that they want to self-fund the treatment and then try to get access to IVF.
“For women who are from more economically disadvantaged backgrounds, this is impossible. It’s a question of equity.”
Georgie
For Georgie, the issue wasn’t just the cost, but also the time it would take to do six rounds of artificial insemination in order to qualify for just one round of IVF on the NHS in her area.
She was 38 when she decided to try for a baby alone, so she spent much of her savings to go straight to the most effective treatment.
“It is quite daunting in many ways to find out how much I ended up spending but in total with six rounds of IVF I spent in the region of £40,000.
“If you’d told me that at the start, I mean who knows what I would have actually said, but I think there’s a big part of me that would have said that there’s no way I can find that sort of money. I don’t see how I can start this journey.”
Her treatment worked and she recently gave birth to a daughter, though the spiralling cost nearly made her give up.
She considered adoption but her desire to carry and give birth to a baby was overwhelming.
Campaigners acknowledge that NHS finances are under pressure, but say single women are a fraction of those doing IVF, totalling just over 2,800 in 2021 according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, so funding them wouldn’t break the bank.
“Single women who want to become parents and haven’t got any other options but to seek help from fertility services, are as deserving of help as anybody else,” said Dr Catherine Hill, CEO of Fertility Network UK.
“If you’re funding six or 12 cycles (of artificial insemination) you’re talking about thousands and thousands of pounds.
“And that’s just financially crippling, it’s a massive financial hurdle. That means it’s practically impossible for most single women to access NHS fertility treatment.”
In exceptional cases the NHS can refer single women to IVF without artificial insemination.
Jennifer Lon-Ho-Kee
This is what happened to Jennifer Lon-Ho-Kee, after a long and confusing journey navigating the system.
“From the time when I went to my GP initially, just to get some exploratory tests, it’s actually been eight years to the point of getting IVF, which is a hell of a long time. And it was like pulling teeth at every stage,” she said.
She was initially told she could not get fertility treatment because she was single, but when she asked again a few years later she was put on the waiting list.
Because of delays to appointments, she was nearing the age cut-off for fertility treatment in her area and was given IVF just days before breaching it.
The round did not result in a pregnancy, and Jennifer is now spending thousands on fertility treatment abroad.
The financial strain for single women should not be harder than for couples, according to Mel Johnson, a solo motherhood coach.
“Some people spend all their savings, even go into debt to pay for the treatment, which makes the starting point of becoming a parent challenging from a financial point of view,” she said.
“For me the main thing is it will be equitable with everybody else.”
The government told Sky News that local health services in England follow guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), and a review of those guidelines is expected to be published in 2024.
Prosecutors are considering whether to bring further criminal charges against Lucy Letby over the deaths of babies at two hospitals where she worked
The Crown Prosecution Service said it had received “a full file of evidence from Cheshire Constabulary asking us to consider further allegations in relation to deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital and Liverpool Women’s Hospital”.
“We will now carefully consider the evidence to determine whether any further criminal charges should be brought,” it added.
“As always, we will make that decision independently, based on the evidence and in line with our legal test.”
Letby, 35, was found guilty of murdering seven children and attempting to murder seven more between June 2015 and June 2016 while working in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital and is currently serving 15 whole-life orders.
Letby worked at the Countess of Chester Hospital and Liverpool Women’s Hospital
She is understood to have carried out two work placements at Liverpool Women’s Hospital, where she trained as a student, between October and December 2012, and January and February 2015.
Police said in December that Letby was interviewed in prison as part of an investigation into more baby deaths and non-fatal collapses.
A Cheshire Constabulary spokesperson said: “We can confirm that Cheshire Constabulary has submitted a full file of evidence to the CPS for charging advice regarding the ongoing investigation into deaths and non-fatal collapses of babies at the neo-natal units of both the Countess of Chester Hospital and the Liverpool Women’s Hospital as part of Operation Hummingbird.”
Detectives previously said the investigation was looking into the full period of time that Letby worked as a nurse, covering the period from 2012 to 2016 and including a review of 4,000 admissions of babies.
Letby’s lawyer Mark McDonald said: “The evidence of the innocence of Lucy Letby is overwhelming,” adding: “We will cross every bridge when we get to it but if Lucy is charged I know we have a whole army of internationally renowned medical experts who will totally undermine the prosecution’s unfounded allegations.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Three managers at the hospital where Lucy Letby worked have been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter.
On Tuesday, it was confirmed that three managers at the Countess of Chester hospital had been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter in a separate investigation.
Read more from Sky News:
‘Catastrophic failure’ that led to Heathrow power outage revealed
Man charged with murder of 93-year-old woman in Cornwall
Police said the suspects, who occupied senior positions at the hospital between 2015 and 2016, have all been bailed pending further inquiries.
There is also an investigation into corporate manslaughter at the hospital, which began in October 2023.
A public inquiry has also been examining the hospital’s response to concerns raised about Letby before her arrest.
In May, it was announced the inquiry’s final report into how the former nurse was able to commit her crimes will now be published early next year.
Earlier this year, Letby’s lawyers called for the suspension of the inquiry, claiming there was “overwhelming and compelling evidence” that her convictions were unsafe.
In February, an international panel of neonatologists and paediatric specialists told reporters that poor medical care and natural causes were the reasons for the collapses and deaths.
Their evidence has been passed to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates potential miscarriages of justice, and Letby’s legal team hopes her case will be referred back to the Court of Appeal.
A power outage that shut Heathrow Airport earlier this year, causing travel chaos for more than 270,000 passengers, was caused by a “catastrophic failure” of equipment in a nearby substation, according to a new report.
Experts say the fire at the North Hyde Substation, which supplies electricity to Heathrow, started following the failure of a high-voltage electrical insulator known as a bushing, before spreading.
The failure was “most likely” caused by moisture entering the equipment, according to the report.
Two chances were also missed that could have prevented the failure, experts found, the first in 2018 when a higher-than-expected level of moisture was found in oil samples.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Moment Heathrow substation ignites
Such a reading meant “an imminent fault and that the bushing should be replaced”, according to guidance by the National Grid Electricity Transmission.
However, the report by National Energy System Operator (NESO) said the appropriate responses to such a serious issue were “not actioned”, including in 2022 when basic maintenance was postponed.
“The issue therefore went unaddressed,” the report added.
The design and configuration of the airport’s internal power network meant the loss of just one of its three supply points would “result in the loss of power to operationally critical systems, leading to a suspension of operations for a significant period”, the report added.
Heathrow – which is Europe’s biggest airport – closed for around 16 hours on 21 March following the fire, before reopening at about 6pm.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Heathrow bosses were ‘warned about substation’
Around 1,300 flights were cancelled and more than 270,000 air passenger journeys were disrupted.
Tens of millions of pounds were lost, thousands of passengers were stranded, and questions were raised about the resilience of the UK’s infrastructure.
More than 71,000 domestic and commercial customers lost power as a result of the fire and the resulting power outage, the report said.
NEOS chief executive, Fintan Slye, said there “wasn’t the control within their [National Grid’s] asset management systems that identified that this [elevated moisture levels] got missed.
“They identified a fault, [but] for some reason the transformer didn’t immediately get pulled out of service and get repaired.
“There was no control within the system that looked back and said ‘oh, hang on a second, you forgot to do this thing over here’.”
Sky’s science and technology editor, Tom Clarke, pointed to the age of the substation’s equipment, saying “some of these things are getting really very old now, coming to the end of their natural lives, and this is an illustration of what can happen if they are not really well maintained”.
The report also highlights a lack of joined-up thinking, he said, as “grid operators don’t know who’s critical national infrastructure on the network, and they don’t have priority”.
Responding to the report’s findings, a Heathrow spokesperson said: “A combination of outdated regulation, inadequate safety mechanisms, and National Grid’s failure to maintain its infrastructure led to this catastrophic power outage.
“We expect National Grid to be carefully considering what steps they can take to ensure this isn’t repeated.
“Our own Review, led by former Cabinet Minister Ruth Kelly, identified key areas for improvement and work is already underway to implement all 28 recommendations.”
In May, Ms Kelly’s investigation revealed that the airport’s chief executive couldn’t be contacted as the crisis unfolded because his phone was on silent.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who commissioned the NESO report, called it “deeply concerning”, because “known risks were not addressed by the National Grid Electricity Transmission”.
Read more on Sky News:
Starmer ‘faced down his MPs and lost’
Partial verdict in Diddy trial
Concern for player safety at Euros
Mr Miliband said energy regulator Ofgem, which opened an investigation on Wednesday after the report was published, is investigating “possible licence breaches relating to the development and maintenance of its electricity system at North Hyde.
“There are wider lessons to be learned from this incident. My department, working across government, will urgently consider the findings and recommendations set out by NESO and publish a response to the report in due course.”
The Metropolitan Police previously confirmed on 25 March that officers had “found no evidence to suggest that the incident was suspicious in nature”.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike