Can you have IVF with NHS after private

[Eleonore15]

Hello,

We are trying to conceive for almost 2 years and in July 2018 have been referred to NHS for a treatment. I was given Provera to start my periods and Clomid to stimulate ovaries in December. However it has been a mess with NHS from the beginning from referring us to a wrong doctor to actually having to start taking Clomid. It has been amost 8 months and I have just started cycle 1 with Clomid, which is not working so far (just had my first scan today). Every appointment takes time off work and I find it very difficult to come up with a new exuse why I need to be late or have a day off.

Has anybody tried going private just for Clomid treatment and if unsuccesful then come back to NHS for IVF? Or once you are private there is no way back to NHS? Its just flexibility issue for us, to be able to manage both trying to conceive and work and we can afford to do scans private but IVF is really expensive there. What is your advice, please.

Thank you,
Eleonor

[mayihavesomecakeplease]

Sorry to not have an answer but following as well - I just made a post yesterday about being referred to the wrong doctor! We are thinking about getting some tests done privately but wondering if we could come back to the NHS for treatment..

[BadlyAgedMemes]

From our experience from a few years ago: the private treatment cycle will be counted into your allowed quota of NHS treatments. In our case, we'd had a single IVF cycle privately, and then went onto the NHS side, where in our area we were allowed three cycles in theory, but with having had the private one, we had two NHS cycles remaining. So my recommendation would be to go for the NHS ones first, if you're hoping to have it.

[Eleonore15]

Thank you. But do you think this relates to Clomid as well, if I will do just Clomid privately and return to NHs for IVf. We are just afraid they will reject us after taking Clomid privately.

[Tomtontom]

All areas have different policies. You'd need to ask your CCG for their policy.

[BadlyAgedMemes]

No, honestly I wouldn't think that would affect it. Sorry if I didn't read your OP properly. There's no certain quota for Clomid treatments, as far as I know, that the CCGs would control, and it's not really the big funding issue that IVF is. But if you're worried, your CCG is the place to ask re. their policies.

[Lauren83]

It's usually only an IVF cycle that affects NHS entitlement but like said do ask your CCG just incase

[raindropsinspring]

CCG are getting so much stricter and many won't consider you for NHS funding if you have gone private already - the wait time as you are now seeing are horrendous on the NHS and if you can afford it go private x

[LessLivid]

I was told my private cycles invalidated any NHS cycles I might have had.

[dietcokemegafan]

Ask your CCG and get the reply in writing.

[Mol5]

Hi!

We went private for clomid whilst still on NHS referral.

Our NHS appointment waitlist was many months and in the meantime between appointments we found a local consultant who for a $200 fee saw us and gave us 6 months of clomid.

The NHS clinic didn't know about this but the private consultant said if we were to continue seeing him he would inform the NHS and they would remove me from my referral. It was up to us to decide which route to pursue thereafter because you can't be in 2 clinics at once.

The clomid privately wasn't successful but when I returned to the NHS clinic for an appointment months later and told them (and presented a letter from the private cnslt), they agreed to proceed as normal.

There was no mention of that in our CCG guidelines and you'd have no obligation to tell the NHS what you have done privately..

[Mol5]

* sorry £ not $ of course! In the UK.

[Mol5]

Important to note - if you do tell the NHS clinic you are going private - they will remove you from your referral and you'd be removed from treatment and can't go back.

[Infertilityishard]

Hi

How would the nhs know you have gone private for ivf?

Does anyone know the waiting list for ivf. I’ve just been given clomid and have an appt in jan to discuss further (i am assuming ivf referral) how kind would it actually take from my jan appt to actually having ivf

[Janefx40]

@Infertilityishard it will depend on your area. When I had my NHS IVF there was no waiting list at all but other areas were waiting for several months. I'm no longer an NHS patient but my current private clinic have no wait list while others have a backlog from Covid.

You'll need to find out which clinic they are offering (sometimes there's a choice, sometimes not). You could then ask the clinic directly and you can also ask on here in a new thread as there are so many women on here, you can usually find a couple currently using the same clinic.

This is a very old thread too btw! Best of luck Xxx

[tiggerwhocamefortea]

@Infertilityishard

Hi

How would the nhs know you have gone private for ivf?

Does anyone know the waiting list for ivf. I’ve just been given clomid and have an appt in jan to discuss further (i am assuming ivf referral) how kind would it actually take from my jan appt to actually having ivf

Waiting lists very depending on your area and which clinic you elect to choose for treatment

Some areas only have one or 2 clinics that the NHS use which may also be a private one so your info would be on file - I guess they'd find out that way

I wouldn't lie about it though. Personally Id have moral and ethical issues lying to a publicly funded body like the NHS about not having had treatment before if I had. Plus doctors learn a lot from that first cycle to better improve the chance of success of the next one. If you pretend you haven't done it before then you could jeopardise the success of your round