In September’s edition of Clinic Focus we advised that the new edition of the Code of Practice, subject to sign off from the Secretary of State, will go live later this year.
The following areas of guidance are being introduced or updated in this new edition: leadership, patient support, information provision to patients, implications of treatment and consent, counselling, extension of storage, consent, surrogacy, screening, egg sharing, OHSS, data protection, import and export of gametes, Single European Code, and data submission. Minor corrections, clarifications and minor amendments have also been incorporated.
In August we published a preview of the additional changes to Code of Practice guidance in this Chair’s letter to give you the chance to familiarise yourself with any changes before they go live, and in September we produced more guidance to help your clinic prepare for these. We expect some changes to be implemented by you with immediate effect; we appreciate that other changes, for example those relating to the support of patients and OHSS, will take longer. Our inspection teams will take this into account when looking for proportionate evidence of efforts to become compliant with new requirements over the coming months.
If you have any questions, please contact your clinic inspector or email policy@hfea.gov.uk.
Publication date: 9 April 2026