Confidentiality
We keep all details of your treatment absolutely confidential, and will tell no one without your permission. At the same time, it is a good idea for your GP (your family doctor) to know about your treatment, and it is best for you to tell him/her. You can then discuss with your doctor what sort of record you want kept in your medical notes.
Communicating information outside of the Hewitt Centre
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Following the Human & Fertilisation and Embryology Code of Practice, we do not disclose any information regarding your treatment to anybody outside the Hewitt Centre without your written consent. Before your treatment commences, the staff at the Hewitt Centre will discuss this with you and you will be asked to sign a ’Consent to Disclosure’ form (CD form, HFEA). This will allow us to communicate information to persons who may be involved in your treatment such as your GP.
It has always been our preferred policy to keep GPs fully informed of any treatment that their patients are having with us, in line with good medical practice and as directed by the General Medical Council. We believe that this communication is important for our patients’ well being and is needed where the GPs are helping with the treatment, prescribing drugs or giving injections. We have also always respected the right of patients to have a say in what is told to their medical practitioner and to their gynaecologist.
Information sent to the Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority
The Register
The HFEA is a government body that regulates infertility treatment in the UK. It has a duty to keep a record of all registrations, treatments and outcomes that result from assisted reproduction techniques. The collection of records is known as the register.
Why is there a register?
The aim is to give people conceived through donation an opportunity to learn about their genetic background and to help avoid biological relatives inadvertently marrying or having children. This came into effect on 1st August 1991.
What information is held on the Register?
The Register holds information on patient and partner registration at a clinic, donors, donor gamete (insemination) treatments, in vitro fertilisation (IVF), embryo creation, embryo use and pregnancy outcomes. /newimg_064.jpg)
Who is allowed to have information from the Register?
The 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act stipulates who can have information from the Register. People over the age of 18 (or younger if they are planning to marry) who were conceived after August 1991, can apply to the HFEA for information to find out whether they were conceived using donated sperm, eggs or embryos and, if so, if they are related to their potential partner. The first donor conceived individuals covered by the HF&E Act will reach the age of 18 in 2009.
As the law now stands, no information about patients, their children and donors will be given out by the Authority, under any circumstances other than those outlined above. The current law does not allow people who apply for information from the register to know the identity of past donors*, or of patients and their children. It is a criminal offence to disclose that information.
From 1 April 2005 all donations are made on the basis that the donor's identity will be made available upon request by their donor conceived offspring when they are 18.
*If a child were to sue the clinic for damages if that child were born with a disability as a result of a donor’s failure to disclose inherited disease, a court might require the HFEA to disclose the donor’s identity under the Congenital Disabilities (Civil liabilities) Act 1976.
