Waiting to start NHS IVF (Chester) - anyone else affected by the cap on NHS patients?

[CurbsideProphet]

Is anyone else stuck waiting to start their NHS treatment at Care Fertility Chester because of the current cap on NHS patient numbers set by Countess of Chester hospital?

Care Fertility asked me to contact PALS about it (which I did), but I've not heard from PALS in 2 weeks.

I'm trying to manage my stress but it's really difficult when we don't know if we might be waiting for another 6 months. The nurse was very vague about wait times.

What is a cap on patients? Really curious if this affects the hospital we have been assigned too! How do you find out?

@AnonymousXXIX I rang on the first day of my last period and was told that at the moment the Countess of Chester hospital will only allow the IVF service to treat 15 NHS patients per month. We didn't know anything about it and hadn't been told during our phone appointment with the doctor.

Sorry I can't help but it sounds super stressful! I had IVF there and hadn't even heard of a cap (but it was over a year ago now). Are you waiting for them to contact you or do you have to call on the first day of your next period in hopes you'll get the go-ahead? I would chase PALS If it's the former. I've contacted them before now and my partner has too about a separate issue and on both occasions they were very quick to respond and helpful.

@Yokey PALS finally responded today after nothing for 2 weeks. The finance department have said something about reduced funding to Care Fertility Chester during covid. I didn't really understand tbh. I presume that I'll have to keep ringing on the first day of each period and eventually we'll be at the top of the list. No idea when that will be.

I called the hospital we're with and they said they had no such thing as a cap and there's currently no waiting to begin treatments. (They did not seem too surprised that I asked though, as if maybe they did know what I was referring to? But not sure if I should make that assumption from a 1 min telephone convo.)

Oh how stressful to be looking forward to your period each month without knowing if you can begin treatment. If it were me, I'd be wanting to know where I am in the queue in the very least. Surely they understand the uncertainty is really tough.

Hopefully it won't be much longer

Thank you @Yokey 💐
I'll have to ring on Monday so hopefully they might be persuaded to give me some more info 🤞🏻

@curbsideprophet did you get sorted in the end? We've just had our referral sent through to Chester as they had the shortest wait compared to Manchester and Liverpool. Now I'm worried about the 15 NHS patients per month as it wasn't mentioned when we were given our clinic options!