The HFEA's quarterly newsletter on fertility treatment data |
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Welcome to the Winter 2026 ‘Data research update’ from the HFEA! |
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New HFEA report - The Fertility Sector 2024/25 |
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We recently published our ‘The Fertility Sector 2024/25’ report (formerly State of the Sector) showing that more than 100,000 fertility treatment cycles took place in UK licensed clinics last year, with incidents occurring in less than 1% of them.
The report found that the number of incidents reported to the HFEA increased by 36% from 2023/24 to 2024/25, but that none of them were in the most serious category. The rise in reported incidents was mainly in the least serious category (Grade C), which rose by 53% in the same period and related to aspects of treatment such as clinic administration.
The report provides a snapshot of the HFEA’s regulatory work for the year, covering the number of inspections, reported incidents and non-compliances.
Read the full report and visit the HFEA’s website for more information about how we regulate. If you are interested in pursuing research projects using register data, visit the HFEA data research webpage.
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HFEA Choose a Fertility Clinic (CaFC) - consultation report published |
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The HFEA ran a focused consultation to gather views from professionals and patients on the main profile page statistics for each licensed clinic. We recently published our report on the findings of this consultation.
Choose a Fertility Clinic is a tool to help patients find the right clinic for their treatment. The findings from the consultation, published in December 2025, helped to inform the HFEA about which clinic statistics were most helpful for patients when investigating their options before starting treatment. Key findings from the report include: |
- A total of 273 responses were included in final analysis.
- Most preferred statistic out of the four options presented was births per embryo transferred (3.37), followed by births per egg collection procedure (3.31). The least preferred were births per cycle started and births per embryo transfer procedure (both 3.22). However, differences were seen between response groups.
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Most respondents (80%) were in favour of including a combination of both fresh and frozen embryo transfer cycles in the main profile page statistic.
- Almost 70% (69%) of respondents were in favour of excluding treatments using donor eggs in a clinic’s main profile page statistic, while 23% were in favour of including treatments using donor eggs. However, differences were seen between response groups.
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Half (51%) of respondents were in favour of excluding treatments using PGT-A from a clinic’s main profile page statistic, but differences were seen across response groups.
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You can read the full report here. |
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Recent HFEA presentations on national fertility register data |
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The HFEA attended the Fertility 2026 Conference from 7-10 January in Edinburgh, and presented data exploring the experience of fertility patients speaking to a General Practitioner (GP) prior to starting treatment using the HFEA’s National Patient Survey (NPS) 2024. The data also explored the experience of single patients undergoing fertility treatment in the UK using the HFEA Register and HFEA’s NPS 2024. In addition, the HFEA team presented a talk on ‘Regulating UK embryo research: perspectives for the future’.
ESHRE 2026 will take place in London in June. Please reach out to us at register.research@hfea.gov.uk to arrange any in-person discussions on using HFEA data in research at the event or during your stay in London. |
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Scientific and Clinical Advances Advisory Committee (SCAAC) |
The Scientific and Clinical Advances Advisory Committee (SCAAC) encourages greater research collaboration.
At its October 2025 meeting, the Scientific and Clinical Advances Advisory Committee (SCAAC) noted that patients are not always able to donate their eggs, sperm and embryos for research purposes, despite having a desire to do so. This is because donating embryos to a specific research project requires the clinic to have a link with the relevant research team, which not all clinics have.
The Committee highlighted the need to encourage further collaboration between fertility clinics and research teams to ensure embryos can be donated for research and used in medical research to contribute to the development of further knowledge and enable research discoveries.
Details of previous meetings including agendas, papers, and minutes can be found on the SCAAC homepage. SCAAC will hold its first meeting of the year on 4 February 2026. |
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I’m Dr. Fiskani Kondowe and I’m a Marie-Curie Early-Stage Researcher within the Centre of Biostatistics at The University of Manchester. I’m also a co-founder of Girls in STEAM Network Malawi, which encourages and mentors women to pursue and remain in STEM fields.
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My recent study published in Human Reproduction used data from the UK national register to investigate whether the demographics of patients that consent for their treatment data to be used for research reflect wider patient demographics and study outcomes of fertility patients.
This study identified that consent rates were lower for patients over 40 years, Black and Asian patients, and those accessing privately funded treatment. In addition, patients with lower live birth rates, which has previously been linked to both ethnicity and age at treatment, were less likely to have given consent for their treatment data to be used for research.
This highlights the importance of considering the impact of consent bias on studies using HFEA data from October 2009 onwards when legal requirements for consent were introduced. For more information about research projects using register data, visit the HFEA data research webpage. |
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Publications using HFEA Register data |
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A list of publications issued in the last year resulting from research using HFEA data can be found below, with earlier papers found on our website. |
- Song, H., Clemens, T., Doherty, R.M., Stocker, J., & Bhattacharya, S. (2025) Assessing ambient air pollution’s effects on birth outcomes: a Scottish IVF cohort study (2010-2018). Environmental Health 24 (54)
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Williams, C.L., Bunch, K.J., Stiller, C., Murphy, M.F.G., Botting, B.J., Davies, M.C., Luke, B., Lupo, P.J., & Sutcliffe, A.G. (2024) Langerhans cell histiocytosis in children born after assisted reproductive technology. Reproductive BioMedicine Online 49(6).
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Purkayastha M, Sutcliffe A, Brison DR, Nelson S.M, Lawlor D., & Roberts S.A. (2024) Perinatal health in a cohort of children conceived after assisted reproduction in the UK: a population-based record-linkage study. BMJ Open 14.
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Other publications using HFEA data, including the anonymised dataset |
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Bruckamp L., & Lazzari. E. (2025) Shifting the reproductive window: The contribution of ART and egg donation to fertility rates in the UK. Population Studies (2025).
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Datta, A.K., Nargund, G., Wilding, M., Dobson S., & Campbell S. (2025) Embryo utilisation rate and transferable embryo to oocyte ratio correlate positively with livebirth rate but negatively with oocyte number: analysis of 14,156 fresh IVF/ICSI cycles. Journal of Ovarian Research 18 (112).
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Zhang, Y., Jia, Q., Liu, Y., Guan, Y. (2025) Insemination methods for embryos transferred in frozen-thawed embryo transfer cycles do not impact reproductive outcomes in couples with non-male factor infertility. Scientific Reports, 15 (13630).
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Kondowe, F.J.M., Gittins, M., Clayton, P., Brison, D.R., & Roberts, S.A. (2025) Bias due to non-consent in assisted reproductive treatment cohort studies: consent for disclosure to non-contact research in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority register. Human Reproduction 40 (5).
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Tighe, J., Broughton, S., Roberts, R., Kasaven, L. S., Cutting, R., Bridges, E., Ng, A., Evans, A., Theodorou, E., Ben Nagi, J., & Jones, B. P. (2025). Effectiveness and safety of consecutive single embryo transfer compared to double embryo transfer: results from the UK HFEA registry. Human reproduction 40 (5).
- Datta, A.K., Campbell, S., Diaz-Fernandez, R., & Nargund, G. (2024) Livebirth rates are influenced by an interaction between male and female partners’ age: analysis of 59 951 fresh IVF/ICSI cycles with and without male infertility. Human Reproduction 39 (11).
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Paffoni, A., Vitagliano, A., Corti, L., Somigliana, E., & Viganò, P. (2024) Intracytoplasmic sperm injection versus conventional in vitro insemination in couples with non-male infertility factor in the ‘real-world’ setting: analysis of the HFEA registry. Journal of Translational Medicine 22 (687).
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We rely on researchers to let us know when they have published research using HFEA data. If you have a publication to contribute to the bibliography, please contact us at register.research@hfea.gov.uk. |
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| Editorial statement
Data research update is an official electronic newsletter of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, is produced by the HFEA and provides a roundup of news and information on the Register data and Register Research Panel activity. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior permission. You can view our privacy policy on our website.
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