Referral to a fertility clinic

[Tginger]

Good morning all, I hope you can help me.

I'm all new to this and only had one appt with a gynea who said they would refer me to a fertility clinic and what I should do just sit and wait. There were no details given to me as how, when, where. It's only been only two months since my appointment but I'm really worried that I'm may've got forgotten or my records lost -- just from other people's experiences with NHS.

How long should I wait till I start panicking or is there a way of finding about the progress of my referral.

Thank you!

[Tnthketnf]

Yes, be prepared for a lot of waiting and very little information. I live in Scotland so timescales and process may be different from your area. I was referred by the GP after initial testing showed unexplained infertility of two years. Initial app to see if I meet nhs criteria was within 12 weeks. Then it would have been another 7- 8 months until the injections part of treatment. So it would have been a total of about 11 months from referral. Because of covid restrictions it was an extra 6 months on top of that.

There is a lot of waiting in between appointments. Nurses are usually nice but they work with hundreds of patients so there is not much time for you and you feel like a number on their list. You rarely get any answer to your questions- although I think that's to do with reproductive medicine in general and not just NHS.

Good luck!

[Tginger in reply to Tnthketnf]

Hi, thank you for your response. I'm 39 and they said that due to my age the waiting times should be less than usual but, honestly, what are the chances!? 😅 It's really frustrating that they didn't even give me any contact details, no phone numbers or name of the clinic.

[Positivechangeplease in reply to Tginger]

can you go back and ask which clinic you’ve been referred to and then chase the clinic. You should be fast tracked imo if 39. It only took a month or so for me to be contacted from my referral when I was 38. Definitely worth chasing it. The worst thing for me in all this was wait times and not knowing how long they were. My clinic was great and fast but when I was referred back to the hospital I contacted PALs who helped find info out for me and keep me updated with where I was on a list, it was hugely helpful.

[Waitingonarainbow]

Hello 🙂

My experience is that there are long waiting lists depending on where you live so I would say prepare yourself for a bit of a wait!

I requested a copy of the referral letter so then when I did ring the clinic, I had the date of referral and other reference numbers in front of me. The person I spoke to was very put out that I was ringing and couldn’t just wait to get a letter, but eventually I was given an approximate wait time so then I knew what to expect.

We decided to go to a private clinic as the wait time for our NHS treatment was over a year.

Have you had any tests yet? This might be something you could get started with in the meantime…

[Tginger in reply to Waitingonarainbow]

Hi! It would be nice to have a copy of the referral letter. That would at least be my evidence that I did get referred. I've only had hormone tests by my GP for gynae. Gynae didn't give any further info or instructions, so I'm in the dark and don't know what else I could do. I'm 39 and really worried that I'll get too old before it's my turn on their list!

[JA-fnuk Partner Nurse Fertility Network UK]

Check with GP referral definitely sent - times to be seen can and do vary depending on where you live Hopefully you should receive a letter confirming when you are on the waiting list- it should also tell you how long the waiting time is likely to be

Take care

Janet

[Ccopo]

Personally, I would call gynae up and ask them which clinic you’ve been referred to. For me, it was obvious because there was only one NHS clinic covering quite a large geographical area. Then you can call the clinic to check if they’ve got your referral and how long it might take to get to the top of the list.

For me, the delays were in gynae, not on the ivf clinic side of things. I got referred by my GP to gynae in April 2021, had no appt or contact for months on end, chased and chased, then had lots of appts from Jan 2022 onwards cancelled on the day of (which I found really upsetting), then had lots of the same tests for months on end. I finally got transferred to the ivf clinic in June 2022 and the wait was about 8 weeks before I had my first appt. I did chase this up though because I thought my referral had been misplaced. I then received a letter a few days following my chaser call with an appt…

So first appt was in August and I started IVF in November and that was considered to be “no waiting list”.

It’s definitely worth keeping on top of the various people/depts to check referrals have been received and to check waiting times etc.

[Tginger in reply to Ccopo]

Hi! Oh my, this is a really long route! Thank you for sharing. I'm going to start chasing now. It was really confusing that I still haven't received any correspondence, so I can't be sure the referral got sent in the first place!

[StarsAllAround]

There is usually a long wait. Do you have the NHS app? If not download it as our referral came through on there then we had to select a clinic and book an initial appointment, we didn't get a letter through the post at all which was what we were expecting. You should also be able to chase up with your GP if you can actually get through to them) x

[Tginger in reply to StarsAllAround]

Hi, thank you for your response. I've checked on the app and there is nothing there, neither GP could help me, they said I should try to contact the Gynae secretary. Fingers crossed I'll be able to get through to the secretary!