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IVF Waiting Times in Scotland

Quarterly summary of waiting times and waiting lists for IVF in Scotland.

All publications and supporting material to this topic area can be found on the PHS Scotland IVF Waiting Times page. The date of the next release can be found on our list of forthcoming publications.

Please note: Field names have been changed in the quarterly files with the May 2021 release to express values in the number of Weeks instead of the number of Days. The files where field names have changed are: Completed Wait by IVF Centre; Completed Wait by Referring Board. The Waiting by IVF Centre and Waiting by Referring Board files have been replaced with Waiting by IVF Centre by Month and Waiting by referring Board by month files to provide additional monthly data. The values are expressed in the number of Weeks.

The statistics available in this release continue to be constrained by the availability of quality-assured data from the Glasgow IVF Centre. Prior to the May 2023 release, issues were identified with some aspects of data previously submitted by this IVF Centre. Progress has been made to address these issues and as a result, some previously published statistics have changed.

In this release, PHS can report on the number of patients screened and performance against the waiting time standard, for both the Glasgow IVF Centre and Scotland as whole for the period January 2016 to December 2023. Data on the number of referrals and patients waiting are reported on for the period January 2016 to May 2023 only.

A full dataset is published for the three other IVF Centres.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Source Aggregate counts accredited and derived from individual NHS Scotland Boards are submitted monthly to PHS using a defined Excel template. ART/IVF Waiting Times Data Warehouse consists of a series of 'open' records for patients still waiting for treatment and 'closed' records when patients are removed from the waiting list.
Author PHS Waiting Times Team
Last Updated February 27, 2024, 09:32 (GMT)
Created April 8, 2020, 14:29 (BST)
Contact Address Public Health Scotland, Gyle Square, 1 South Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh EH12 9EB.
Subject Access and Waiting Times
Frequency Quarterly
Time frame of data and timeliness The data timespan includes data from April 2016. The data has been submitted by IVF Centres by the 20th of each month using a defined Excel template and data submission to the national warehouse by the last Thursday of January, April, July and October. The deadline for data submission. The data is published last Tuesday of March, June, September and December.
Coverage Data covers all Health Boards in Scotland and the four IVF Centres (Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow).
Completeness 100% of submitted data are used for analysis and publication.
Accuracy PHS receives aggregate data from each NHS IVF Centre Board. Although aggregated data cannot be systematically validated by ISD, reported data are compared to previous figures and to expected trends. Derivations of the figures and data accuracy are matters for individual NHS IVF Centre Boards. The data from the ART/IVF warehouse is subject to a sign-off procedure each quarter before publication.
Continuity of data Information has been collected nationally since April 2016. Field names have been changed in the quarterly files with the May 2021 release to express values in the number of Weeks instead of the number of Days. The files where field names have changed are: Completed Wait by IVF Centre; Completed Wait by Referring Board. The Waiting by IVF Centre and Waiting by Referring Board files have been replaced with Waiting by IVF Centre by Month and Waiting by referring Board by month files to provide additional monthly data. The values are expressed in the number of Weeks.
Concepts and definitions Definitions not contained in the publication report (See Links) are available in the report produced by the National Infertility Group at https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-infertility-group-report/
Disclosure The PHS protocol on Statistical Disclosure Protocol is followed.
Revision statement If NHS Boards discover that data submitted for publication is incorrect, or that data are missing, further re-submissions can be made up until the publication submission deadline date. Any revised figures will then be reflected within the current publication. Figures contained within each publication may also be subject to change in future publications as submissions may be updated to reflect a more accurate and complete set of data submissions.
Official statistics designation Official Statistics
Relevance and key uses of the statistics Waiting times are important to patients and are a measure of how the NHS is responding to demands for services. Measuring and regular reporting of waiting times highlights where there are delays in the system and enables monitoring of the effectiveness of NHS performance throughout the country. The NHS in Scotland has been set a number of targets for maximum waiting times. Other uses of the data include information requests for a variety of customers, e.g. research charities, public companies, Freedom of Information requests, information support to Boards, health intelligence work, parliamentary questions, and targets.
Format csv
Language English
Links

IVF Waiting Times publication
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