CRGH clinic – any experiences?

[MoonPieHazySky]

Hi! Just researching clinics and see CRGH in London has very high success rates.

Does anyone have any experience of this clinic?

I have, 5 (attempted) freezing rounds and 3 FETs, they are medically pretty good in terms of the consultants etc. but the admin isn’t great. It’s fine once you know what you are doing but I found the first cycle a bit confusing. They are very responsive though. Happy to answer any questions you have.

Thank you! Someone else has told me they are not very organised 🙈 This sounds like it could be stressful and upsetting! Obviously their LB rates are what drew them to my attention, so I guess there must be elements they do well. Although poor organisation sounds like it could have the potential to really mess things up! Are questions here ok or would it be better to DM?

@MoonPieHazySky from conversations with others who used different clinics the organisation thing seems to be a general issue across the sector. I think it’s more they forget how overwhelming everything is on the first cycle when you don’t understand how it all works. Happy for you to send questions anyway you like!

Thank you! I suppose the main things I’m wondering are what their approach to treatment is – is it lots of monitoring and adjusting/customising the protocol? And how do they come out in terms of costs?

I’m also really curious about what accounts for their success rates. (Which I guess can only speculate about!) They’re better than other clinics by some distance, so wondering what it is they’re doing differently!

hello, I’ll chunk up responses for ease here, so on monitoring, depending on your age and AMH they’ll likely put you on a short protocol, monitoring will look something like this for your cycle days:

• Day 3: baseline scan to confirm start of stimulation meds
• Day 6: scan and bloods
• Day 9: scan and bloods
• Day 10-day before collection day - scan and bloods every day or every other.

after every scan they ring you in the afternoon to confirm your meds (if they go up or down in dose). This decision is taken by a group of consultants reviewing every patient that day - I like this as it’s not a one person decision and draws on their range of experience. Collection day can be pretty much anything between day 10-20 depending how big your follicles are. Most people are day 12-16.

If you are making embryos (ie not just egg freezing) the day after collection they call you to confirm how many fertilized, you get an update 3 days later and again at 5 days later. Rough guide 30-50% of fertilized embryos on day 3 make it to blastocyst on day 5/6. You either transfer them and/or freeze depending on numbers.

Success rates, they do genuinely have some pretty well-qualified consultants if you look at the team section of the website. The other thing that I think is not immediately apparent but I have found out is that they have both private and NHS patients. I did some freezing rounds with them privately while I was waiting for the NHS - UCLH is my NHS clinic/hospital. CRGH has a partnership with UCLH, so while UCLH do their own appointments, scans and bloods, CRGH do UCLH’s NHS patient’s daily reviews, egg collections and embryo transfers. Note a lot of the CRGH consultants work for UCLH as their NHS roles. Therefore the success rates for the UCLH patients are attributed to CRGH. The reason I think this is relevant is because those going through UCLH as NHS patients have to fit within a certain criteria to even get NHS funding in the first place, for example an AFC of over 4 and under 40 years old etc. To me this would weight this towards patients who are potentially more viable/successful a bit. I don’t know the proportion of the NHS vs private patients.

Costs - this depends on what you need. If, for example you just want to freeze eggs and you have good stats, under 35 with a good ovarian reserve, then they are probably not your most cost effective.

If, like me, it’s more complicated then they seem to be pretty much on par with other in London. I have a very low ovarian reserve, a blocked tube and MFI so we needed someone to look at our case and tailor it.

One big tip: you have to get a load of prescreening tests done such as thyroid tests (this is an HFEA requirement). CRGH charge over the odds for some of these so you can shop around, Randox for example.

If you let me know roughly what you are aiming to do I can check the price list and let you know what it would be as a ballpark.

hope that helps!

Thank you, that is super interesting and food for thought!!! On the hfea website they group results into ‘under 38’ and ‘38 and over’, so this potentially obscures things a bit if this clinic have a disproportionately high number of 38 and 39 year olds due to nhs referral criteria. (In other parts of the country the cut off age for referral is higher).

This is really, really useful info, thank you.

I will see if they can provide any further data on their average patient profiles.

That being said, I had heard that the average age in London is higher, although that’s just anecdotal.

Thank you so much!!!!!

I am 40 and have just finished an NHS round. I’m a bit gutted to be honest as the local hospital we were referred to strung us along time-wise and really ran down the clock. If they’d been honest about waiting times I’d have immediately gone elsewhere. But I digress! :)

I have PCOS and abnormally high AMH, so did low dosages for the stims over a longer period to avoid OHSS. For this reason also FET rather than fresh transfer. MFI also so did ICSI. So I guess would all fall under the ‘more complicated’ category!

From memory it was 20 mature eggs, 13 fertilised and we got one 5-day blast. I wonder if there was potential to continue with the stims a bit longer, as there were a large number of follicles just under the threshold. Wondering if somewhere like CRGH might be more customised with this sort of thing and able to respond more sensitively to individual patient profiles.

Thank you so much for all this info! I love the group of consultants thing too. It’s reassuring that they combine and pool a range of expertise in their decision making.

It's useful to see a breakdown like this to compare to what's happening at my clinic (King's). I started short protocol on day 2 in the evening. Had a first tracking scan and bloods AM on day 5 (with call back around 5pm). My second tracking scan is tomorrow on day 7 and thereafter will probably be every other day.

What medication is typically used/ did you have?

Just for context the NHS fertility policy for this area is here: https://nclhealthandcare.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/North-Central-London-Fertility-Policy-2022.pdf#page22

the max age is actually 43, but there are still some other criteria etc.

In terms of continuing with stims, due to my low follicle count on one round they kept me going and collected on day 18. I guess there is a toss up between risk of ohss where your follicle count is high though.

I remember on that round I was worried I might suddenly ovulate and I told the nursing team this and so my consultant just said I could go for daily bloods/scans in the final days to put my mind at rest.

And here are some ballpark costs, obviously this massively depends on exact protocol and treatment.

IVF cycle (inc. scans, nurse appts, egg collection, embryology & transfer): £3,995
ICSI: £1,395
Blood monitoring during cycle (as many as needed): £595

Annual storage for any spare embryos: £375

Drugs obviously depend on your protocol and CRGH partner with a delivery at home pharmacy company to send you your meds. CRGH also stock some themselves so you can ‘top up’ if you need to. So I have previously bought enough to get to say a day 14 collection and then just topped up via CRGH if needed.

E.g. protocol costs @sirensong example drugs below:

Norethisterone for 2 weeks before: £20
Cetrotide from day 7: £30 per day
Meriofert from day 3: £29 for 75iu (range £29-£87 per day)
Fostimon from day 3: £29 for 75iu (range £29-£87 per day)
Gonasai trigger: x2 5,000iu £100 (£50 each)

If moving to transfer:
Cyclogest pessaries from collection day: x2 per day until weened off £36 for x15
Lubion from collection (maybe depends on protocol, 0-2 per day): £126 for 7 injections
Prognova tablets: 3-5 per day until weened off x84 £28
Clexane: daily from transfer until weened off x10 £60

I am under UCLH and CRGH. So far have good experience with CRGH. From egg collection, I supposed to have fresh embryo transfer but the doctor was not happy tonproceed due to OHSS so they had to freeze my eggs. I had my embryo transfer on 10.10.24 and i am now pregnant. The nurses, doctors and embryologist are quite pleasant and kind.

This is the 2nd time I've been to them. 1st was with own eggs a few years ago and no luck but they were great so I went back. I recommend Dr Ali (aka Dr Al Chami), whom I saw at the CRGH city clinic in John St. All the team there was/is really great, and he was particularly fantastic for our journey with a known donor. He was very calm and compassionate, explained everything well, and was very reassuring to have his direct number to contact when I had a few waves of panic about normal things ie nothing! We are expecting our first child and would defo go bak to him and his team for baby #2 without hesitation. They also have a patient portal where you can get very quick responses and call back from the nursing team which is also great.
In regards to costs, most of the costs I paid as I went so it wasn't too bad.. eg £300 here and there for consultations/scans/bloodtests etc or meds as you get them etc.
In regards to being organised I had heard similar things but I think this was when they transitioned from being GENNET to CRGH which happens with any kind of company changeover. The only negative experience I've had with their whole team was with a receptionist who seemed clueless but perhaps she was just new oh and also their blood tests are pricey so get them with your GP if you can. ;) Aside from that they were brilliant, knowledgable, competent, kind and friendly.

Hope that helps!

That’s really helpful, thank you for taking the time to share! :)

And congratulations :)