NHS fertility referrals - waiting times

[pjmeek82]

I'm 37 and my OH is 35. We've been trying to conceive for a while and my GP is referring us to the fertility clinic due to my age as well as raised chlamydia titres (despite me never having been diagnosed with chlamydia so we were surprised by those results). Everything else came back normal from my side and my periods are as regular as clockwork. My OH is waiting to get his semen analysis done, and once we have that, my GP will be able to pass on our referral.

My OH had to be added to a waiting list to get a semen analysis on the NHS, which surprised us, had we known at the start that we'd have to wait so long for that (about six weeks, although still waiting for the exact appointment date) we would have just paid to have it done privately. I'm concerned that if we are having to wait for that, then the referral to the fertility clinic proper is going to be months and months.

So my question is, has anyone else been referred to their nearest NHS fertility clinic by their GP? If so, how long did it take between the GP referring you and having your initial appointment? We live in Devon so if anyone is in the same county I'd be interested to know, but still interested in what the waiting times have been in other parts of the country too.

We just got our letter with login to choose an appointment. I was expecting it to be months and months but when we looked the nearest available appointment was in 1 months time. This is in Kent though and my DH can just drop his SA into the hospital anytime with no appointment necessary. I think it can vary a lot by area though unfortunately.

@Makeafamily19 That's encouraging. My GP said once her referral has gone through I'll get an email with a number to call in order to make an appointment with the clinic.

Regarding the semen analysis: his GP gave him a referral form with a phone number to call the clinic, they told him that they currently weren't making any more bookings because they were booked up until the 21st Feb (he called 3 or 4 weeks ago) but he was 13th on the waiting list if spots opened up. He got a call today asking him to confirm all of his details as they were getting ready to start booking in NHS appointments again. We're assuming that they will book him in and he'll get a letter through the post with his appointment time.

It might be worth noting that because my OH is in the Navy he has a military GP, I'm a PhD student so registered at the student health centre at the university I study at, I figured that even if we move with his job, it's good to keep my GP consistent whilst I'm a student. Because of this, he was referred to a different hospital for the semen analysis than the hospital we will be referred to when my GP puts in our fertility referral. So it might be that the hospital he was referred to has longer waiting lists than the hospital that will ultimately provide our treatment.

Two weeks later and we are still waiting for an app for my OH to get his semen sample done. When I saw my GP last week she tried to have us referred again, but it was pushed back to my GP again because the fertility clinic won't accept our referral without the results of his semen analysis. We have no idea when that app is going to be, despite him having a call a couple of weeks ago which made it seem like he'd have an app any day, he still hasn't received one. Even my GP thought it was odd that the hospital he has been referred to for his semen analysis have him on a waiting list, because as far as she is aware, the hospital that we will be referred to together via her would have just asked him to call in whenever was convenient to produce his sample. Due to these delays and delays with his GP referring him for the semen analysis in the first place, we've been in limbo for coming up to three months.

Hi @pjmeek82 we paid privately for dh's sperm analysis - it was £100 and same day results. I dropped them into my GP the next day. My GP wouldn't refer us on without his results and his nhs appointment was pushed back, so 4 month wait in total from our initial go appointment, hence going private. Our first appointment was 3 months later. We've been with the fertility clinic since last May, I've had lots of tests and an operation and we've been referred for ivf now and our funding was approved within a few weeks, so much quicker once you get a diagnosis (we're unexplained).

Good luck

I think it only took 2 weeks for a slot to drop DH semen analysis off but then after that it was about a 6 month wait for first appointment. Then it took 6 further months of appointments and tests before we were in a position to proceed with any treatment. At this point I fell pregnant naturally.

I got an email yesterday from my GP surgery saying that we have been referred, although erroneously, it says I've been referred to the gynaecology department rather than the fertility clinic, I have no idea if this is normal or if there has been an error.

The email contained a phone number and reference number, it said to wait three working days before calling so I have to wait until Thursday to call. My OH and I are attending an open evening this evening at the fertility clinic we will be referred to. I think the open evening is aimed at private patients, but we have lots of questions and would like to check out the clinic. We still haven't had his appointment for his semen analysis and depending on what the waiting list time ends up being when I call on Thursday (or if we ask this evening), we might just pay to have it done privately so that it's done. In the grand scheme of things £100 is nothing and if it means we have everything we need without having to wait longer, it will be worth it.

Have you been in touch with the sperm analysis department to check what the delay is?

@MilleniumHallsWalledGarden When he initially called to book an appointment they said that they weren't currently booking semen analysis appointments for NHS patients as they were booked up until 21st Feb. At the time he originally called (at the beginning of January) they said he was 13th on the list they would work through if there were any NHS cancellations before 21st Feb. My partner got a call from them two weeks ago to confirm his details as they were starting to book NHS patients in again. We assumed that he would get an appointment letter in the post shortly afterwards but we've not heard anything more since then.

Meanwhile, my GP seems to have been able to push through our referral tot he fertility clinic despite not having his semen analysis results yet (she's tried this twice before but the referral was rejected because it didn't have his test results, this time she added a notation stating he would get the analysis soon). I got an email on Monday asking me to wait three days and then call the booking office to schedule an appointment at the hospital. (Perhaps) erroneously, the email states that I've been referred to the gynaecology clinic, rather than the fertility clinic. Not sure this is usual or some mistake has been made.

Coincidentally, we are attending an open evening at the fertility clinic this evening. Hopefully some of the questions we have will be answered this evening. I think the open evening is aimed more at private patients (the clinic does both private and NHS), but we really wanted to see what the clinic is like so decided to book into the open evening.

If we have to wait much longer for his semen analysis appointment I tihnk we'll just go private and spend £100 to get it done straight away.

I’m in north London, and the wait was about 8 weeks, and they didn’t mind that the semen analysis hadn’t been done yet - they just gave me a date for him to do it. It was all very quick for the rest of the investigations, and meeting the consultant to have a plan made.

@pjmeek82 i was sent to the gynaecology dept too, thats where our fertility clinic is. I wouldnt let that worry you.

Gynae depts usually run the fertility clinics. I get your DP to ring the semen analysis dept and ask for clarification.

*I'd get ...

The wait times seem about right in my experience. 3 months if you are lucky got a consultant appointment at our nhs fertility clinic, even follow ups were meant to be 3 months but at worst were 6 months!!

Good luck op. I hope u have a better experience than we did

We ended up private and yes it cost a lot of money (the nhs system is so unfair) but I now have a 4 month old baby girl.

Hi @pjmeek82, its so strange how varied this is across the country! I live in the northwest and got referred to gynaecology sub-fertility clinic at my local hospital before xmas, after GP arranged blood tests and SA (2 week wait for this). Was offered first appt end of March, but the clinic cancelled this and no further appt offered. I phoned and got fobbed off/told to wait for another letter. GP took pity I think and referred me to 2 other hospitals commutable from me (literally looked at all options across the northwest) who also gave appts end of March. There were a couple of hospitals who had appts sooner but gp advised these were screening appts not assessments so there would be another hidden wait.

I also complained to PALS (patient advice and liaison service) at original hospital about cancellation (I work for an NHS outpatient clinic and know that when PALS get involved, the patient gets an appointment asap!), and have just got an appt there next week. GP advised not to cancel any of the appts until we've been seen somewhere. So all going well now, it will be a 10 week wait, but probably only because I complained. Hope you get your appt soon

We went to an open evening at the fertility clinic on Tuesday and at the end we had an opportunity to speak to one of the drs. We explained the hold ups we'd had, they reiterated that it was their policy to bounce back referrals that lacked a semen analysis. They said they they didn't have any waiting list for semen analysis and told my OH to contact the other hospital and ask if it was ok for them to let him have his sample done at the clinic we'll eventually be treated at.
He called the original hospital that his military GP referred him to the following morning. Despite calling him two weeks ago to double check his details, they admitted that because the unit at that hospital was moving over the summer they were not taking on any more NHS patients for the foreseeable future. They said that as long as the clinic we'd visited were happy to do his semen analysis there, it wasn't a problem from their end.
He then called the clinic we visited and spoke to the same dr we had chatted to the previous evening. He has an app for next week as they only do semen analysis where the patient needs to produce the sample at the clinic once per week (we live over an hour away from the hospital).
The same day I got an email from my GP surgery saying that despite the fact that I had received a referral email, the referral had been bounced back again. My GP followed up this email with a call explaining everything again and I updated her on my OH and his semen sample app. Once his GP gets his results back I need to email them to my GP and she will then refer us again.
Whilst at the open evening we asked what the NHS waiting time was from the point of referral and they said six weeks. They are obliged to see patients within eight weeks to adhere to targets and they are currently meeting this in all cases.
Ultimately the open evening was really helpful and it was nice to see the unit. Hopefully it won't take long for his results to come through (a pamphlet we picked up at the open evenings said results are usually sent to GPs within two weeks), then my GP can send the referral pack off straight away. In the meantime we are continuing to DTD in the hope it happens naturally. However, given the results of the initial tests from my GP and reading up on the literature, it might be that my tubes are blocked and I might need an op or if the damage is too bad, it might be that we need IVF.

Just a few updates since my last post.

We eventually got a referral approved just as lockdown was happening, we got an initial letter from the clinic saying we would have an appointment soon, and then about a week later we got another saying all fertility treatments and investigations had been halted. Annoyingly, we had further delays with my OH's semen analysis. His GP sat on his results for a week before my OH called to chase the results because he hadn't heard anything in about three weeks, only to be told that the results had been waiting for him to collect, but no one told him to collect them!

In mid April we got a call from the clinic inviting us to a video consultation which happened the following week. We were told that the Dr wanted me to redo the blood tests because she was worried the FSH and LH results were skewed because the test was done on day 5 instead of day 3. She also said that she wanted me to have an ultrasound followed by a laparoscopy because she suspected blocked tubes. However, all that would have to wait until after lockdown.

We then got a letter in the post about a month ago with an ultrasound appointment which was scheduled for two weeks ago. However, the preceding Friday, my OH rushed me to A&E with suspected appendicitis. Turns out it was actually a ruptured ovarian cyst. The surgeon said that my uterus and tubes looked fine from what he could see and there was a small cyst on one ovary (which he said was normal) and a burst cyst from the right.

When I turned up for the ultrasound, the Dr said that because of what the surgeon had said, instead of doing the ultrasound that day, she instead wanted to schedule me in for an ultrasound with dye test, as she had the answers she needed from the surgery I'd had that weekend.

I was told to call on my day 1 to get the scan on day 10, but apparently they were too busy to get me in this month and next month the Dr is on holiday, so we are looking at September for the scan and dye test. Possibly October, depending on backlog.

It's incredibly frustrating, particularly as my OH's next posting means we'll be overseas in September so will need to fly back for the appointment. Hopefully, they'll get another consultant to do the scan in August, but I was told not to hold my breath.

Our major concern is that once we get to the two years of trying stage, I'll be 39 and depending on how long the IVF waiting lists are, we may end up only getting one NHS funded attempt because I might hit 40 by the time it's our turn.

Hey, your situation really does sound so frustrating, so sorry that you're in this position. We went to our GP about infertility in Jan, after trying for a year...an MRI I had for unrelated issue flagged up a cyst. We waited months and months for our hospital to accept semen samples (they're still not accepting them now, we just got so fed up so paid 180 to get it privately). Found out last month my partner has low morph so we got referred to gyne/infertility... but theyre still not seeing anyone new, so we haven't received an appointment yet and no idea how long before we will. Tempted to go private but partner feels that would be silly when we could potentially get first round of IVF on NHS if needed, I'm just at my wits end with it all and so so fed up. I know my situation isn't quite the same but just letting you know I somewhat share your frustration :(