Resuming world-class IVF treatment safely at Bourn Hall clinics – making dreams come true

Bourn Hall is reopening for IVF treatment, offering the best success rates in the region with your safety as our top priority

Keeping you safe

We are introducing new ways of working to keep you and our staff safe as we reopen for treatment; this includes:

  • Preparation before you come to the clinic – virtual appointments with a fertility nurse specialist or fertility doctor are working well and this makes sure your time at the clinic is only for essential visits.
  • Risk assessments – we are putting in place thorough risk assessments for our staff and our patients and revising the whole patient pathway to ensure the safest possible working practices.
  • Covid-19 testing – patients and staff will be tested before treatment/returning to work.
  • Best PPE – different types of PPE are required for different procedures and we have ensured plentiful supplies are in place at our clinics and our staff are rigorously trained in the correct use of PPE.
  • Social distancing – we have ample free car parking and we will be asking patients to attend for appointments on their own and one by one. Our staff are being trained in new ways of working to ensure we maintain the social distancing requirements.
  • Ramping up appropriately – stringent measures will be in place to ensure that  the appropriate patient numbers are invited for treatment safely as the situation develops.
Irises outside Bourn Hall Cambridge

Fertility treatments available 

  • IVF consultations – if you think you need IVF we are offering virtual consultations now with a specialist fertility doctor within a secure clinical environment. If you need fertility testing then we can arrange this.
  • IVF treatment for current patients – as some patients had their treatment suspended due to the coronavirus outbreak, they will be given priority along with patients aged 40 and above and women with a low ovarian reserve (detected by an AMH test). We estimate this treatment will start in mid June/early July and a nurse will be in contact with you to set this up.
  • IVF for new patients – once you start treatment the first stage is medication and monitoring and we are hoping this will also begin in June – we will discuss timings with you during the consultation.
  • IUI – if you have good fertility health and are using donated sperm, then you may choose to have IUI (Intrauterine Insemination). This is less invasive than IVF, less expensive and a good option for same-sex female couples and other patients using donor sperm who don’t need IVF.
  • Frozen Embryo Transfer – if you have embryos frozen in storage we can provide rapid treatment and at a fraction of the cost of a full cycle of IVF. Patients that recently had all their embryos frozen because their treatment was suspended will be given priority.
  • Specialist services – we also provide rapid treatment for emergency fertility preservation, for example cancer patients before chemotherapy and we will continue to the provide this support with all the safety measures in place.

Excellent IVF success rates

Your personal success rate depends on your health, age, time spent trying to get pregnant and other factors, and we can give you an estimate of this in your consultation.

To compare clinics you can use the HFEA statistics (the stats for 2017, the latest HFEA data, are shown here).

Embryology is a skill that takes many years to perfect and the more cycles a centre undertakes the more experienced the embryology staff will be – so it is important to look not just at the success rates but also at the numbers of treatments, and to compare the live birth rate per embryo transferred so you are comparing like with like. To give an example, Bourn Hall Cambridge had 497 births in 2017 and Cambridge IVF had 38.

BH-CambsIVF - Births per embryo under 38

To book a virtual IVF consultation with a fertility doctor simply email our patient services team on [email protected].

How long does IVF treatment take?

IVF treatment takes an average of 9 weeks. It involves stimulating your ovaries with medication so that many eggs mature at the same time, collecting the eggs, mixing them with sperm and transferring the fertilised eggs (embryos) to the womb. More about IVF treatment.

IVF fees and funding

Bourn Hall provides NHS and self-funded IVF and we will be resuming treatment for all patients regardless of how their treatment is funded.

if your CCG does not fund IVF treatment or you are not eligible for NHS funding you can pay for each cycle as a private patient and if you are successful on your first attempt this can be the cheapest option. However, for some it can also add stress not knowing if more than one cycle is needed to achieve a pregnancy.  This is why we partner with Access Fertility to offer IVF multi-cycle and money-back guarantee packages.

By using Access Fertility packages some patients can agree in advance a package of treatment for a fixed fee. For many people this removes one element of stress. Access Fertility provides a number of different programmes so patients often need detailed information to help them choose what is right for them and if the treatment is unsuccessful they can have a refund.

For example, IVF Unlimited is available to women aged under 38 having treatment using their own eggs. It means patients can have as many cycles as they wish in a two year period for a fixed fee and if they don’t have a baby they will receive 100% of their money back.

The Patient Services team is always happy to try and help patients decide on which is the right self-funding package for them, and Access Fertility also provides advice. This table outlines the Access Fertility options.

Access Fertility options table

More information

If you have questions or concerns please do contact us by email: [email protected]

Read our blog for more advice and information on IVF, IUI and other treatments.

Find out more about the different types of treatment we offer.

Read more about Access Fertility in a guest blog.

Find out more about the funding options on our funding page.

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