Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update on Fertility Treatment at The Hewitt Fertility Centre

Update to Patients: 11th June 2020

Since receiving the news that both the Hewitt Fertility Centres Knutsford and Liverpool can recommence fertility services, the teams have been working hard contacting all those patients who had treatment cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic and getting them restarted on their fertility journey. Exciting times for all of you and we wish you the very best of luck for the next few weeks ahead! 

We are now in the process of contacting those patients who were unable to start their treatment, either first or subsequent cycles. If you have already contacted us to start your treatment, we will be back in touch with you to give you guidance on when and how you can get started.

If you are starting to consider fertility treatment and would like to know how we can help you then please contact us to arrange a clinic appointment with one of our fertility specialists.

We know that the last few months have been really tough for everyone and we are so grateful for everyone’s patience. Our priority as always is the safety of our patients and staff and to this end the service may feel a little bit different to how it was before as we have put many safety measures in place to ensure we minimise the risk to everyone.

The biggest change is that we have initially reduced the number of patients visiting the clinic to 50% capacity. This is just for a couple of weeks while we assess that all the safety measures are working as we expect them to, then we can increase this further.

All clinic appointments are strictly via appointment only, which does mean we can’t continue with our ‘drop in’ service but should undoubtedly reduce your waiting times.

We are now offering many more virtual and phone consultations to reduce the number of visits you need to make – hopefully this should turn out to be a very positive change as it reduces the number of times you need to travel.

Due to the large volume of calls from many of you desperate to get going with your treatment, our phone lines are extremely busy. We apologise if you do have to wait a short time for a call back but we have made additional staff available to deal with your enquiries as quickly as possible.

We are continuing to contact all of you patiently waiting to start your treatment and those who may be anxious and wish to wait a while longer before starting, and we are sorry if you feel you haven’t heard from us for a while. If you feel you could do with some additional support or if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us on the numbers below and have a chat with us.

Nurses:  0151 702 4123

Counsellors: 0151 702 4075

All of us at the Hewitt Centres realise how any delay or change to fertility treatments can be hugely stressful and frustrating. However please be assured that we are working hard to provide a service that is safe and effective for all our patients and we thank you again for your patience and understanding over recent months.

Update to Patients: 13 May 2020

We are so excited for all our patients as we can only imagine how difficult the past weeks have been for all those seeking fertility treatment, and how comforting it is that you can finally get started.

Measures we are taking to keep you safe

Please understand that the service will be a little different to what it was before as we have put processes in place to keep you and our staff safe. This means we cannot restart treatments at the capacity we were originally working to as we continue to keep everyone socially distanced, so we will be monitoring the number of treatments we perform at any one time. 

When you can expect to start your treatment

We will now be making direct contact with those patients whose treatment had already started but had to be postponed due to the recent closure, to explain how you can get re-started. This also means we need to contact those patients who were postponed at later stages in their treatment as a priority. 

For those who have previously had treatment with us and are waiting to start a new treatment cycle, if you have already contacted us, we will be in touch to arrange a clinic appointment. This may be a virtual appointment. If you have not had treatment with us before and would like to discuss starting, please contact us on 0151 702 4123 to arrange a clinic appointment. 

We will make contact with you as soon as possible 

If we had to postpone your treatment and you do not receive a call from us straight away, please do not worry, we will contact you as soon as we can provide a clear update on restarting your treatment.

Please continue to be patient with us, we will restart your treatment as soon as it is safe to do so and give you the best chance of making your treatment a success. It is important that we all work together to keep each other safe.

How we can support you if you are worried

We know that this will be a worrying time for many of you. Please be reassured that if you are anxious about restarting treatment and wish to consider waiting until you are ready then we will support you with this decision.

Please continue to contact our fertility counselling team if you need any further support on 0151 702 4075.

Who to contact with any further queries

We understand that many of you will be eager to receive more details and keen to start treatment as soon as possible. We will keep you updated regularly. As we re-commence our services from next week our phone lines will be extremely busy so we would ask for your patience so our teams can speak to as many patients as possible.

Thank you for your continued patience and understanding

Everyone at the Hewitt Fertility Centre is extremely happy to be able to resume treating our patients. We know the last few weeks have been difficult and we would like to say thank you for your patience, understanding and support during this difficult time. We look forward to seeing you all back at the Hewitt Fertility Centre.

With best wishes,

Rachel Gregoire

Scientific Director & HFEA Person Responsible

Hewitt Fertility Centres, Liverpool and Knutsford

Following the recent announcements from the HFEA we have today (12th May) submitted our application to the HFEA for approval to restart fertility treatments. We hope to resume some services from Monday 18^th May 2020. We now await the outcome of this and hope to make a positive announcement soon. In the meantime we ask that you please continue to be patient.

We will be making direct contact with some patients who we will be expecting to see as a priority to provide them with an update on when their treatment could potentially resume, this will include those who had already started their treatment but it had to be postponed due to the closure.  If we had to postpone your treatment and you do not receive a call from us straight away, please do not worry, we will contact you as soon as we can provide a clear update on restarting your treatment.

For those waiting to start a new treatment with us, we will provide an update via the website on when your new treatment can start when we receive the outcome of our application from the HFEA.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued patience, understanding and support during this difficult time. Please continue to contact our fertility counselling team if you need any further support on 0151 702 4075, online counselling is also available.

On 23rd March 2020 our regulators the HFEA who give us a licence to be able to perform fertility treatments, instructed us to stop fertility treatments until further notice. On Friday 1st May the HFEA updated their advice and have told us that from Monday 11th May we can apply to re-open.

To apply to re-open we have to put together a safety strategy that provides the HFEA with evidence to show that we can operate safely, and provide fertility treatments while keeping our patients and our staff safe. We can send our strategy to the HFEA on or after Monday 11th May but we then need to wait and hear back from the HFEA to confirm we can re-open before we can start any treatments.

Our strategy will include how many fertility treatments we can perform at one time, while keeping with social distancing measures. This may mean that the number of patients we treat at one time may be limited to keep you safe.

Please be aware that we have a list of patients on a ‘holding list’ that sadly had to have their treatments cancelled when we stopped performing fertility treatments in March 2020. We will want to consider some or all of these patients as a priority to be treated first. We also need to consider those patients of advanced maternal age and if they may also need to take priority.

Please bear with us while we put our strategy together and while we wait for the HFEA to confirm that we can re-open. We appreciate that although this is fantastic news, the wait for your treatment has been difficult and a further wait may become frustrating.

If we had to postpone your treatment due to our closure, we will contact you directly when we are able to start your treatment safely.

If you have a new enquiry for starting a new NHS cycle we will have had a referral for you and you will be invited for a clinic appointment when we can start your treatment. We may contact you via phone or by letter.

If you have a new enquiry for starting a new private cycle, please contact our Private Patient Navigators and they will invite you for a clinic appointment when it is safe to do so. We may contact you via phone or by letter.

Please note that we are currently unable to give a specific date as to when fertility treatments will resume. This is likely to be announced at some point after Monday 11th May 2020. When we have this information we will update our website immediately with full details of timescales and treatment types that can resume. We will also make contact with relevant patients who will be seen as a priority due to clinical criteria. 

Update to Patients - 01 May 2020