Choosing an IVF clinic

Provides information on how to choose an IVF clinic. Includes listing of all licensed UK IVF centres.

By Dr. Marcus | Last Updated June 14, 2023 2:18 PM GMT

How do you choose a centre?

There are several factors which may influence your choice of IVF clinic. The following is a list of factors to consider when choosing your centre. The relative importance of each of the points depends on your individual preferences and requirements.

The clinics live birth rate per treatment cycle started.
Cost of the treatment.
Location of the clinic.
Restriction on treatment e.g. BMI less than 30, negative screening for AIDS tests, Hepatitis B and C, upper age limit and treatment of couple only.
Length of waiting list.
Special expertise e.g. surrogacy, PGD, rectal electroejaculation, assisted hatching, blastocyst embryo transfer etc.
Availability of embryo freezing and storage.
What other treatments the clinic offers.
The multiple pregnancy rates of the clinic.
Availability of independent infertility counseling.
The provision of friendly and relaxing environment.
The presence of a patient support group.
Recommendation by your doctor, relative or friend.

A recent survey of the users of this site ranked the factors as follows:

Features of clinic	Success rate (most important) Quality of service Distance from home Special expertise e.g. ICSI Cost of treatment Availability of counseling (least important)
Finding out about clinic	Recommendation by a medical doctor (most important) Information pack provided by the clinic Recommendation by friends or family Internet advertising Adverts in newspapers and magazines Radio advertising Television advertising (least important)

Data adapted from Marcus et al. 2005 Fertility and Sterility

The site lists all licensed IVF clinics in the United Kingdom according to county/area. If you live in the US, information about US IVF centres by region is available. We do apologize for not providing similar lists of the other overseas IVF clinics. We are currently exploring the possibility of linking to external websites to provide this information.

All information about the UK IVF centres is adapted from the HFEA publication "The Patients Guide to IVF Clinics 2008".