Clinic staff should be aware that a decision was made at our April extraordinary meeting of the Authority to temporarily pause the Opening the Register service (OTR) due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of fertility clinics.
As part of the OTR service we need to provide applicants with confirmed and accurate information, and this involves checking the information regarding all the fertility treatments in which a donation was used with the fertility clinic where the donor was registered. This is to ensure that the information we have on the HFEA Register matches the clinic’s records about the outcome of the donation, and we can provide applicants with verified information on the year of birth and sex of any children born from a particular donation. Due to the closure of fertility clinics, we cannot confirm this information and therefore we cannot process applications until the clinics re-open.
Applicants can still continue to contact us with any queries or applications to access support.
We will be communicating this information on our website, via clinic focus and through our social media channels. Our website will be updated when we are able to resume processing applications.
Publication date: 9 April 2026