About Fertility Scotland

In 2010, the Scottish Government established the National Infertility Group (NIG) to “… bring together fertility service representatives, key national bodies and stakeholder representatives to actively provide expert knowledge and advice to the development of existing and evolving Scottish Government policy on infertility and its implementation within NHS Boards.” (NIG report 2013)

Following on from that, Scottish Government have supported and invested in the expansion of NHS fertility services in Scotland. Scotland now provides the highest proportion of NHS funded fertility cycles and also has one of the highest success rates in the UK. To further improve the consistent quality of NHS fertility care and treatment, the National Infertility Group recommended in 2018 that:

“A single Fertility Network for Scotland should be created to promote sharing of good practice and expertise, to create national protocols for every single process involved in fertility services, and to support delivery…”

Launched in 2021, Fertility Scotland is commissioned via NHS National Services Scotland on behalf of Scottish Government and will support NHS fertility services to learn from best practice, adopting a “Once for Scotland” approach and identify areas of improvement and develop work streams to address these areas. The network is led by a clinician Abha Maheshwari and scientist Joanne Leitch and brings together representatives across the fertility care sector including patient groups, doctors, nurses, scientists, managers and Scottish Government policy leads.