What do you look for in an IVF clinic?

[Tatlerer]

Hello!
So, full disclosure - I am a mum to a 6 yo conceived via ICSI at King's in London and then a subsequent FET at the Lister clinic. I was also a FREQUENT user of these chat boards at the time, and am pleased to say I'm still friends with the supportive group of ladies I met on here all those years ago.
I work in PR and communications and have been asked to put a bid together for a London-based fertility clinic. I know what I looked for when I moved from the NHS to the private sector, but I would be so interested to hear from you about what you look/looked for. How did you make your decision? What attracts you to some clinics and puts you off others?
I hope you don't mind me popping back here to ask this question. I hope you are all as well as you can be - 2020 must have been a truly horrendous year to be facing infertility as well as the other sh*t life is throwing at us at the moment.
Thank you, Laura

Hi for me it’s simply the success rates . I looked at the hfea site but some clinics have stats missing . I have to say that I think clinics should only be allowed to publish live births per embryo transferred on their sites per age group . I find it very confusing how many stats they publish Which makes it impossible to compare. I’m not really interested in how many pregnancies a clinic manages if they fail ! Perhaps someone will be interested but I don’t find that valuable . They should all have to show a three year average also .
It needs to be standardised and monitored !
Other than the success rate I look at forums to see how bad the process was eg they messed up my medication. I’m not too concerned about the clinic being touchy feely etc and while admin issues can be stressful ( experienced many times!) as long as the medicine and doctors are on the money then that’s what matters to me .

Thanks Sunshinelove8 - I completely agree about the live birth rate being the statistic that matters. Really appreciate you taking the time to respond - thank you.

For me it was a "gut" feeling? Going to open evenings felt like a weird version of speed dating looking for that one clinic that gave you optimism and hope and above all a feeling you could trust them.

I went with Create for a number of reasons

• relaxed happy environment- didn't feel too glitzy and corporate
• relaxed friendly staff
• didn't feel like a walking cheque book - was actually talked out of lots of "extras" that Id read about
• specifically wanted short protocol IVF with option to go to natural Modified
• location - accessible within 15-20 mins and multiple clinics across the country for when I was away with work
• started treatment at 730am to minimise impact on work

I didn't take much notice of review sites - people only tend to post when they've had a particularly bad experience rather than a good one which skews the ratings.

Didn't take too much notice of success rates - they are easily manipulated - a certain well known clinic as such high success rates well above the national average because they move any complex cases to their sister clinic

The main issue for us was wanting a clinic who actually went back to the beginning and looked at what might be casing our issues (we had 'unexplained' infertility).

The Care Fertility clinic in our home town where we had our NHS-funded treatment had a very 'by numbers' approach, with set protocols that were never adjusted apart from slightly tweaking meds - we did 2 fresh and 2 frozen blastocyst transfers, all of which failed outright and which I now view as a massive waste of NHS money. They didn't listen to my concerns and just said there was nothing more they could do.

We went to the London branch of the same chain for a consultation as we wanted to try PGS, but the consultant was very cold and clinical and we didn't feel we were really given any useful advice.

We then moved to CRGH in London who took our entire case history, ordered a battery of tests and basically went through everything with a fine tooth comb before putting a treatment plan together. The consultant was lovely and we had complete confidence in her. We were told about experimental and new treatments but were never pushed into them (and were advised against some of them). We actually felt like we had a fighting chance - and it did work, we now have a 2 year old DD.

Also important:

• Flexibility & availability of appointment times; I could literally choose any time I wanted for a scan or nurse appointment so could easily fit it around my work.

• Transparency over costs and how they can escalate, especially after you get pregnant. This was a bit of an issue with CRGH to be honest - they had our credit card on file and we would get invoices through the door a day before an appointment, having no idea what they were actually charging us for. We were given a rough quote and pricelist for our stim and transfer cycle, but it wasn't made clear until I got pregnant that I would be on an eye-wateringly expensive programme of meds until I was 10 weeks along. One of the progesterone supplements I was put on was almost £400 a week. I think sometimes they forget that while some of their clients have bottomless pockets, it's not the same for everyone!

• Taking previous experiences and trauma into account. I had an awful experience with egg collection at our first clinic where the sedation failed and I could feel everything. I was terrified of going through it again but one of the anaesthetists at CRGH met with me personally and took me the process they followed to make sure that wouldn't happen.

We did look at success rates but also went to an open evening and liked the feel of the clinic and the staff we met.