NHS Scotland performance against LDP standards

LDP Standard

90% of eligible patients to commence IVF treatment within 12 months of referral.

Current national performance

In the quarter ending June 2022, 100.0% of eligible patients commenced IVF treatment within 12 months.

About this LDP standard

Eligible patients should be able to access IVF treatment equitably. Longer waiting times for patients leads to poorer outcomes, as the effectiveness of IVF reduces with age. Shorter waiting times across Scotland will lead to improved outcomes for patients.

Performance against this standard

The standard is that eligible patients will commence IVF treatment within 12 months. In practice, this will be the percentage of patients who were screened at an IVF Centre within 12 months of a referral from secondary to tertiary care. The Scottish Government has determined that the IVF waiting times standard should be delivered for at least 90% of patients, as for some patients it may not be clinically appropriate for treatment to begin within the target's time. Waiting times information for IVF treatment is at an early stage of development. The 4 IVF Centre Boards (NHS Lothian, NHS Grampian, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde and NHS Tayside) are working with ISD and the Scottish Government to improve the consistency and completeness of the information.

All four NHS IVF Centres restarted IVF cycles following the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority giving authorisation for services to restart in May 2020 following being paused in March 2020. The Centres continue to provide the full range of services and whilst the numbers of patients waiting has increased it is a credit to the hard work of the Centres that the 90% Standard continues to be exceeded, up to and including 31 December 2021. The full impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on referrals to the service will still, however, only become apparent in future quarters.

During the quarter ending 30 June 2022, 294 referrals were received by the IVF Centres in Scotland. During the same period, 375 eligible patients were screened at one of the four IVF centres. All (100%) of these eligible patients were screened for IVF treatment within 365 days (12 months).

The graph below shows national performance on the IVF treatment standard since quarter ending June 2015.

The table below shows the percentage of eligible patients that commenced IVF treatment within 12 months, by NHS Board and IVF Centres, for quarters ending June 2022. NHS Board level performance is shown for this quarter in the table below.

Source: PHS IVF Waiting Times database

 "- " denotes no eligible patients 

The data for NHS Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles have been amalgamated in the quarter ending 30 June 2022.

Further information

IVF Waiting Times publication

Related National Outcomes

• we are healthy and active
• we live in communities that are inclusive, empowered, resilient and safe
• we grow up loved, safe and respected so that we realise our full potential

Page updated: 30 August 2022.