Leeds fertility issues

[Lucylucy66]

We have had some absolutely horrendous problems with Leeds fertility and have been treated like sub human.
I wanted to know if it's just us that they have ruined our lives for or if they have treated other people the same way.

Is this at Seacroft? Yes we had a terrible time, absolutely awful. For many reasons really. V tired and off to bed but when I get a mo I will fill you in further. We went to Care Sheffield following our bad Leeds experience. Worlds apart in every respect. They were great.

How can that be? I had my fet at seacroft and they were amazing.
Planning on having another with 2 remaining embryos. Now I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t

Hi, I'm new to this page so if I haven't posted my reply in the right place, please bear with me.

I'll give an outline of the terrible experience we have endured. If we weren't stronger people, I actually think this might have killed us 😭.
We started a surrogacy journey last year. We decided to go privately with Leeds fertility for our whole journey - ivf and the surrogacy bit.
We had our first appointment in October 2017 and we already had a surrogate ready to go. We all started the government compulsory counselling in December 2017 and everything seemed fine.
They told us to wait for egg collection until they had given our surrogate the go ahead so we could do fresh transfer even though I was 36 at the time and showing signs of peri menopause but I trusted them so followed what they said.
We had our second counselling session in March 2018 and myself and my husband were cleared at this point to move forward.
They saw my surrogate at the beginning of April 2018 and we were all getting a bit concerned by the time delays at that point so they told her that they would give her a definite answer within 2 weeks of that appointment.
We heard nothing.
In May 2018 I was starting to get anxious and rang and rang and rang the clinic hundreds of times a day but I could never get an answer or a response from ant one and Chris the counsellor was never ever in.
Eventually we heard from our surrogate that the clinic had requested more medical records on her. .
From may 2018 to August 2018 we followed the same routine of ringing every single day and never being able to speak to anyone ever and no one ever ringing us back or giving us any information whatsoever.
I was getting distraught by this point.
Eventually in August 2018 after waiting 10 months, they turned our surrogate down and we still do not have a proper reason why, they will not tell us and refuse to ring our surrogate and tell her but she has tried ringing and has never managed to get through to anyone.
At this point, we were emotionally and physically drained by it all.
I don't believe the clinic had been honest with us about how they have handled our surrogate and the way they have treated us is with utter contempt.
We met with Dr Balen and Chris and whereas Chris was helpful, I have never been so rudely spoken to by Dr Balen in my life.
We have not done anything wrong in all of this but they treated us like we were scum.
Not surprisingly we decided to move to a different clinic and unfortunately we had problems in that they have decided to stop offering surrogacy so after alot of thought and consideration and the fact that we still have our sperm stored at Leeds, we decided to give them a second chance.
I rang Sarah Jayne last Monday to tell her we wished to re join.
She told me that she would get everything sorted and would ring me on Tuesday. Tuesday came and no phone call (pretty much standard for Leeds). Wednesday came and both me and my husband spent the whole day ringing and ringing. Nobody again could or would speak to us. Someone then promised that Sarah Jayne would ring me on Thursday to let me know what's going on.
Thursday came and again We spent all day ringing and couldn't get anywhere. Again, someone said that Sarah Jayne would call me Thursday afternoon but she apprently was busy in meetings all day from early morning till 5pm when she went home. Except she had plenty of time to update her personal Facebook page but not to call me back when she knows I am absolutely distraught and struggling to sleep with the worry at the moment.
Today came and my husband was promised a call from Chris which never came and yet again, I have spent all day talking to robots who refuse to speak to me about our case but also cannot get anyone who knows anything to speak to me either.
I was yet again promised that Sarah Jayne would call me and guess what? Didn't happen.
My husband rang later and was told that Chris had washed his hands of our desperate situation and didn't want anything to do with our case and he went home even though it was promised that he would call my husband.
Sarah Jayne is the business manager of Leeds fertility.
I do not know when they will have the decency and dignity to speak to us.
I have waited a year on their say so knowing that my fertility is diminishing month by month. They have taken 10 months to do counselling, a process which at other clinics takes 3 - 4 weeks to give it some context.
Dr Balen has treated me disgracefully and the whole admin team refuse to deal with our case and one lovely lady even put the phone down on me at one point.
And we are paying privately for all this!
We have been absolutely ripped to pieces emotionally by the way they have treated us and we still do even know why they have treated us so badly.
I have registered a complaint with the HFEA and I am also speaking to a surrogacy lawyer about taking this further if my fertility has been irreparably damaged by these delays.

We now have to try and find another clinic and start the entire process all over again a year down the line with a year diminished fertility if not more. At the age of 37, every day is so important to us yet they wasted a year of our lives and a year of my peri menopause and they don't give a damn. And they now continue to treat is like pieces of shit. I have never been so appaulled at a bunch of people in my life and in my opinion, Dr Balen does not give a shit about the person, he just cares about the money and the kudos. I hope they can live with themselves after what they have done to us.
Sorry, but this is killing us and it's the fact that they know this and still can't even be bothered to pick up the phone and speak to us which makes the place an absolute disgrace in my opinion.

Oh my gosh I’m so sorry. Well I only had my fet procedure there so obviously didn’t really have to deal with them on a daily basis.
My actual treatment was with orbit fertlity. They’re situated in the Yorkshire clinic in bingley.
I’m so sorry you had to go through this, how an organisation that’s meant to be sensitive towards their paitients/clients can be so unprofessional, I’ll never know. I’d understand one or 2 people but never more than that. Can’t say I blame you for taking legal action, you’re doing the right thing!

Thank you :) they've just made us feel like we are completely worthless human beings and I am also deeply shocked that an organisation would treat us this way.
Speaking to the HFEA clinic compliance officer on Monday but we are supposed to be going on a well needed holiday to relax not to have to deal with it more but we have to take this route because I can't and won't stand for people treating us like it.
Tbh, I think they just see us as pests because they've had difficulties with our surrogate but that Unfortuanately had nothing to do with us at all and we weren't even allowed to get involved with it so why they are now taking that out on us, I do not understand.
Honestly, I just couldn't or wouldn't recommend anyone to us their services based on our experience but some people may have had better experiences than us.
We just remain unlucky x

Omg @Lucy I am so sorry for what you had to go through. We are in that clinic and so far I havo no problems and I hope our treatment will go as smooth as possible. We have an appointment with nurse on 17th and I hope we can start our journey xxx

Good luck, since looking into this, I have just found nothing but complaint after complaint, after horrific experience, after complaint. I've not seen one person who has a good word to say about the place.

Btw, be prepared for the nurses to not have information or notes on you. That's what we found. They have no idea what they were doing.

I had my collection and transfer through them. They were fab!! We went through Yorkshire fertility for all testing and drugs and what-not.

They kicked a nurse off the recovery area when I was waiting for collection (for talking smack about people going for Ivf). And they never did charge us for the frozen sperm we had...

But the actual treatment I had there was fab!!!!

I'm starting to get the impression through the people I've spoken to that if Dr Balen likes you then you get fab treatment and if he doesn't then you don't :(.
I don't know, that's just what I can gather from people's experiences.
Have put a formal complaint in now with Leeds NHS trust over our treatment.

I am SO sorry that you are having such a horrible experience, and I have a close friend who also had an awful experience with them and moved to another clinic, but just for @Beetroot01 I wanted to just add that my experience there has been good for IVF so not to panic. I didn't see Dr Balen, we had Dr Rutherford who was blunt but fine, and we only had to see him a couple of times. We had nothing but good experiences with the nursing team, everything ran smoothly and our IVF worked (we were NHS). I can't say i'm not relieved to not have to go back there, but that is just the whole infertility experience and nothing to do with anything specific to the Leeds clinic for me!

Dr balen is now refusing to hand over our medical notes which hes not allowed to do so we have PALS dealing with it.
Honestly, we have seen so many negative experiences from there, we wish we had read the reviews before we joined.

Thank you @PhoebyMouse. First we are not with dr Balen, we are with dr Bhandari and we don't have any issues so far. Hope it will be ok x

I hope you will be ok.
We defintely picked the wrong consultant.
I have my fingers crossed for you that you have a good experience and a good cycle and all goes according to plan but from the experiences i have read, that is rare.
Good luck!

@Lucylucy66 thank you, I hope its gonna be fine x

Really lovely team on the whole (consultants, registrars, receptionists etc ). The nurses made me feel like scum though. I went once with my husband and the nurse was really lovely. I went a second time alone and the same nurse was quite cold and impatient with me. I had a few questions on a piece of paper and she made me feel like answering them was wasting her time. Then I received a phone call from a different nurse that lunchtime explaining I needed to increase my dose of meriofert. I was unsure of how to do that even after she explained it (it involves using one and a half vials of meriofert powder and one water). I tried to explain back what she had said to me in my own words for clarity and she was very impatient and rude with me. I explained my husband accidentally broke a vial of water about a week ago, so we were short on one of those and she said “what do you mean he broke a vial?” In a short/ angry way. I don’t know how they feel it is ok to speak to women this way who are going through a difficult / emotional process. I feel really deflated and anxious, and like I can’t attend any more nurses appointments without my husband there incase they snap at me.

Has Seacroft IVF Clinic, Leeds improved over recent years?
They reckon to be rated No1 in the North but reviews from years ago do not look promising.
We were looking at the QE in Gateshead but they are not taking in new referrals whereas Leeds are!
We expect to be going via Assured Fertility on their Multi Cycle Plan.
The alternative is to stick with the Newcastle Centre For Life but Assured, though much more expensive, seem to give some kind of guarantee of live birth!?
Any advice/comments welcome please!

I had successful IVF with Seacroft in 2018 and didn't have any problems we were starting the ball rolling for FET at the end of last year but then I got pregnant naturally before the first appt but again the limited dealings I had with them on that occasion were without issue. Our consultant was a Dr Hayden.

We’ve had a few rounds of ICSI at Seacroft, Leeds, first one in 2017 resulted in our son, then had two failed rounds since trying for baby no2. We’re having one more round elsewhere now, Leeds weren’t prepared to do anymore testing as to why we only got one embryo each time, despite having over 10 eggs fertilise. I’ve always found them helpful and polite, but I did find the care/treatment seems quite generic, like you fit into a protocol, they don’t seem to tailor a protocol to you. There’s also very limited monitoring once you start treatment.

Has any one any experience with the Queen Elizabeth Hospital at Gateshead or the Newcastle Centre for Life, please?
Also has anyone gone down the route of using Assured Fertility or Access Fertility which both offer Guaranteed Live Births or a Refund.
We have applied with both but been refused the Refund programmes and offered their alternative Multi Cycle... just not sure whether the huge extra payment is worth it!!?
Having already spent some £18,000 without success and one horrendous experience, we need to explore all possibilities before committing ourselves further.
We are particularly interested to know whether 'Time Lapse Imaging (Embryoscope) technology achieves better results, please?
(Thanks to ArtfulScreamer and Bonnie 558 for your feedback, very useful.)

@HarryP123 you'll probably be best off starting your own thread for your questions as this thread is now quite old and is specifically about Leeds so you'll only get people on it that have experience at Leeds or are looking to use Leeds.

I've been to QE Gateshead and Centre of Life fertilty centres for work (work in the ultrasound sector and I'm a sonographer) and they both seem to have a very similar set-up to Leeds. QE is a really small unit, so I think you'd get more of a personal touch there, but Newcastle has probably seen a bigger variety of issues. For our last two rounds at Seacroft we went with assured, payed upfront for two rounds as it was cheaper, as we said we'd be done after that if it didn't work, although we decided about 6 months after we would have another go elsewhere. We decided to go to zita west and starting in a few months. I'm not sure where you're based, but have you considered Care Sheffield? They have really good results and also offer some sort of pay plans/multi round plans. We were going to go there, but they didn't offer some of the sperm selection methods we needed. From my experience, if you go to an NHS centre, you tend to get generic treatment but you pay for it. The fully private centres seem to monitor you alot more. Just my opinion though! You need to go wherever feels right for you

Thanks Bonnie558,
That's very useful Information.
We are in Durham so the QE, Gateshead or Newcastle Centre for Life, where last year we had an unsuccessful cycle, are very convenient for us.
We previously had an horrendous experience in Prague when my wife could well have died after severe OHSS, of which the clinic had no experience .. so we now are being ultra careful! We recently looked at the Darlington LWC but were less than impressed.
We were drawn to the QE, Gateshead as several friends of ours have had success there ... but these are same sex couples so used donated sperm. Trouble is, my being over 70 and had a reverse vasectomy, my sperm is the issue, albeit I have 10 frozen straws which are of good ICSI quality. Your Comments re Care Sheffield could therefore also apply to us, plus they seem reluctant to quote full prices online which makes me wary.
Another of our friends were in the same boat as yourselves with Newcastle CFL and had decided to give up ... but they had one last try and now have a wonderfully healthy boy!
If Assured had accepted us onto their 100% refund programme we might well have gone to the QE or to Seacroft ... but we are left with their Multi-Cycle Plan. Trouble is QE have put IVF on hold until at least June by which time my wife will be 38 and prices rise as the chances diminish! Adverse comments on here have put us off Seacroft, added to which the travelling would be onerous, especially as my wife works in an essential occupation so time off is difficult.
ALSO, the prices at Newcastle are substantially less than elsewhere so the various Plans offered by Assured etc are not so attractive.
All thing considered, thanks to your own and other observations, we have decided to stay with the Newcastle Centre for Life. We feel comfortable there expect to go ahead soon.
Good Luck in your own attempts ... be eternally optimistic, one day it Will happen!