Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of trends in the level of the access to IVF treatment on the NHS for (a) married couples and (b) single women.

No assessment has been made as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority collects fertility treatment data based on involvement of a partner and not on marital status.

National Health Service commissioning organisations make decisions on fertility services taking account of the recommendations of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s fertility guidelines. These guidelines are based around the treatment of clinical infertility in couples. Single people are therefore not routinely treated by the NHS for in-vitro fertilisation.