Expectations for first phone call fertility appointment NHS

[Anniekent1]

Hello everyone

Pretty much what it says , we have finally got an appointment for a telephone appointment with the fertility clinic. Trying to not get to excited and not get my hopes up but what can I expect (the lady on the phone doing the appointment said she wasn't clinical so couldn't confirm).
Any tips on what to have ready or questions to ask? For background we are MFI and we have had all our blood work and scans etc from GP whilst waiting
Thanks in advance !

Hi there,
Our first telephone call was just running through the same questions we had already been asked - do you smoke, drink, drugs, have you had children before, ever been pregnant before etc. She ran through the tests we'd had and ordered more.
It felt a bit pointless in my opinion as no new information.ation came from it, was just a small step in a very long ardious process.
That call happened on 2nd July. Since then I've had an internal scan, and another call where they've discharged us now and waiting on funding eligibility call

Hi @LilyPoppet1
Thank you for replying. Think this is my concern. We have already sent back the questionnaire with the standard queries in it. Plus done all the test so feel like it is more of a tick box exercise than anything. Just another blocker before being able to actually get a proper appointment.
Was the second call with another nurse where they discharged you? Did they give you an estimate of how long the funding would take to come through ? Or options of clinics. Sorry for all the questions 😅

Yes, the second call was with another doctor who ran through the same questions again, and she was the one who then discharged and referred us to the eligibility for NHS funding. Call lasted less than 10 minutes. She said we would receive a call within 2 weeks, but looks like it will be 4-6 weeks.
She said that once we have funding, we'll be given options on clinics, but didn't give timeframe on that. We're majorly in limbo right now, and considering going private as really struggling with the delays and hoop jumping

Very similar to what others have said! They mainly ask questions already asked by others, nothing new but review health data and then arrange a face to face appointment with your chosen NHS clinic (this will give more info about next steps)

Thank you @Lil89 Yes so it seems this is more a tick box and the next one more important. Excited to be finally moving but still seems like there is a lot of hoops 😅

I would say to continue with the NHS though as private clinics are so expensive but NHS can be great once you jump through the hoops!

Hi @Lil89 oh definitely we won't be able to solely keep going on private. Using it more as assistance to help the NHS process along to save on time as time is not on our side

Hoping your journey is progressing well / successful. Thank you!

We paid for lots of hormone tests privately (AMH/Sperm quality) and they were not recognised by the NHS 😣 they were good to know but they weren't considered and we had to test with the NHS and wait for the results back from their labs

@Lil89 ahh that seems a bit silly as it saves the NHS money. Were they in date ?

Suppose know until we get there and don't have a choice either way. Whole system and process seems a bit silly at times with what they are accept and what they do and don't do 🙈🙈

I had my AMH levels checked April 2023 and had a long delay in NHS treatment so when we went back in June 2024 for more tests I wanted to use my results from private testing in Jan 2024 but they refused and insisted on NHS testing as they cannot guarantee the results from private tests 😣

@Lil89 oh that's interesting. Whereabouts are you ? What clinic was this ?
Was it quite a long wait once you got the tests or did you have to start at the beginning of the wait list ? Sorry for the barrage of qs

I'm in the same shoes as you (waiting on telephone appt), also wondering what I can do to speed things along! So frustrating
!

This must have been so frustrating! How far along are you now in the process, if you don't mind me asking? Trying to figure out what the next several months might look like/how slow things might be.

Northwest for us (Liverpool NHS), we had to wait quite a while for funding to be approved (admin error on their part!) but we had our meds appointment in July and I started the injections 2 days ago with EC likely to be at the end of August so it goes quite quick once you have your first appointment 🙏