For clinic staff and other professionals
Helping you ensure your fertility or research clinic is following current regulations and guidance.
8th Code of Practice
The HFEA Code of Practice is intended to help and encourage licensed centres to understand and comply with their legal requirements.
It also gives guidance on how centres are expected to go about meeting those requirements.
Guidance
Directions: Directions are essentially rules that clinics need to follow. They have been updated to reflect changes in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 and in HFEA policy.
Chair's letters: Notifications to licensed centres of changes to HFEA policy.
Chief Executive's letters: CE letters provide relevant information about developments at the HFEA and notify licensed clinics of changes to HFEA operating procedures.
Forms to use in your clinic
Consent forms: Record patient consent to various aspects of fertility treatment.
Patients and donors registration forms: Record the registration of fertility treatment patients, and their partner, at your clinic. Includes welfare of the child form.
Clinic operation forms: includes - Confidential declaration form, Person Responsible or Nominal Licensee form, Import and export of gametes and embryo forms and ICSI practitioner forms.
Guide to compliance
HFEA inspection cycle: The HFEA’s continuous monitoring of licensed UK fertility centres involves a four year inspection cycle. Find out what happens before, during and after an inspection visit.
Complying with the Code of Practice: See what inspectors consider when making assessments of a centre’s practice and how that links to the guidance notes in the HFEA Code of Practice.
Clinic incidents: Reporting adverse incidents is recognised as one of the best ways of ensuring that errors and their causes are identified and the opportunity for them to happen again is reduced.
Guide to licence applications and inspections
The guide to licence applications and inspections will take you through the process of applying for your first licence, renewing an existing one and preparing for your inspection.
You can also find out how to make variations to a licence you may already hold.
Getting a licence can be an involved and lengthy process - make sure you are prepared before starting the application process.