The HFEA is committed to improving the emotional experience of care before, during and after treatment or donation. Many clinics already do an excellent job in supporting their patients, but this is not universal.
We introduced guidance in the Code of Practice in January 2019 to help strengthen support to patients by staff at all levels, in every clinic. We asked that all clinics set out a policy outlining how patients, donors and their partners will receive appropriate psycho-social support from all staff before, during and after treatment.
We want to help clinics improve the support offered to patients. On this page you can find a number of resources, including the patient support pathway, a document that details a good practice pathway for emotional support. In addition to this, we have some examples of good practice from clinics and advice on ways all staff can emotionally support patients, and a series of podcasts about different aspects of patient support.
We have created a series of short podcasts featuring an experienced fertility counsellor talking about an aspect of patient support or a good practice example from an individual clinic.
Read through the Patient Support Pathway.
Here you can find nine guidelines to help you provide your patients with the best emotional support you can.
Find out what policies and practices other clinics have in place for emotional support.
View the slides from our September 2019 Patient Support Skills Workshop.
This page provides examples of Patient Support Policies from other clinics.