Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to address regional differences in funding for patients trying to conceive through IVF, in the context of NICE guidelines on offering people under 40 up to three full cycles of IVF.

Funding decisions for health services in England are made by integrated care boards (ICBs) and are based on the clinical needs of their local population.

On 31 March, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published its updated fertility guideline, which recommends that women under 40 years old who meet the clinical eligibility criteria should be offered up to three full cycles of in vitro fertilisation.

We expect ICBs to consider and reflect the updated NICE fertility guideline in their commissioning decisions, and we are working with NHS England to support greater consistency in provision.