Fertility clinics must stop unproven treatments, watchdog warns

Both NHS and private fertility clinics must stop offering unproven treatments that don't help people have children, new official guidelines say.

The draft guidance advises against several popular fertility "add-ons", including so-called endometrial scratches.

These add-ons can "give false hope and put people through unnecessary procedures at an already difficult time", experts at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) say.

They also recommend fertility preservation services such as egg freezing should be more widely available, including to women with severe, recurrent endometriosis.

The guideline committee considered a recent survey by the fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which showed almost three-quarters of people who had had fertility treatment between September and October 2024 had said they were using additional tests or emerging technologies, despite most not being proven to work.

And only 37% of those questioned said the risks of any add-ons had been explained.

The updated draft guidance specifically advises against:

• intracytoplasmic sperm injection, external (ICSI) for men with healthy semen – where a sperm is directly injected into an egg in a laboratory
• endometrial scratch – where the lining of the womb is "scratched" with a small sterile plastic tube before IVF
• hysteroscopy - a fine telescope like instrument is used to visualise the womb, as a pre-treatment to improve IVF outcomes
• tests on the lining of the womb called endometrial receptivity testing, external, as a suggested add-on before embryo transfer

The guidance says patients must be given all the information necessary about treatments, including how likely they are to be successful and the risks and benefits involved.

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Source: BBC News, 10 September 2025