IVF waiting times in Scotland
Quarter ending 31 March 2026

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides a quarterly update on how long patients waited from referral to a screening appointment for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment by the NHS in one of Scotland's four specialist centres in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh or Glasgow. The Scottish Government's national standard is for 90% of eligible patients to be screened at an IVF centre within 52 weeks of receipt of a referral from a secondary care or an acute consultant.

The number of patients screened and performance against the IVF waiting time standard are reported up to 31 March 2026 for Scotland and all IVF centres. Fully up to date data on referrals, the number of patients waiting and their length of wait for the Glasgow IVF Centre continue to be unavailable and a two month data lag remains. PHS can report on these data up to 31 January 2026 for the Glasgow IVF Centre and therefore Scotland as a whole.

Referrals are under-recorded by a small number at the Dundee and Edinburgh IVF Centres for the quarter ending 31 March 2026. PHS are monitoring progress at these centres to improve the process of adding referrals to the waiting list.

Further information is available in the Data Quality section of the full report.

Main points

• During the quarter ending 31 March 2026, 373 patients were screened. The 90% standard was met, with all patients attending a screening appointment within 52 weeks of referral.
• All patients were screened within 26 weeks at the Aberdeen IVF Centre and most patients at the Dundee IVF Centre also experienced a wait of this length (90.4%). This proportion was much lower at the Glasgow and Edinburgh IVF Centres (28.3% and 13.2% respectively).
• 21.7% of patients screened during the quarter ending 31 March 2026 waited between 40 and 52 weeks from referral, slightly lower than the quarter ending 31 December 2025 (24.2%). The majority were at the Edinburgh IVF Centre.
• At 31 January 2026 1,079 patients were waiting to attend a screening appointment. Of these, 40.2% had been waiting 13 weeks or less, 34.1% had been waiting between 14 and 26 weeks, 22.9% between 27 and 39 weeks and 2.8% between 40 and 52 weeks. There were no patients waiting more than 52 weeks.
• The combined waiting list size for the Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh IVF Centres at 31 March 2026 was 478 patients. All patients had been waiting 26 weeks or less from referral at the Aberdeen IVF Centre, compared to 88.2% at the Dundee IVF Centre and 56.5% at the Edinburgh IVF Centre. No patients had been waiting more than 52 weeks at these centres.

This stacked bar chart for patients waiting across Scotland shows the number of patients waiting to be screened at month ends between 31 January 2022 and 31 December 2025. As a result of the referral backlog, data for the Glasgow Centre is only available up to 31 October 2025. At 31 October 2025 1,007 patients were waiting across Scotland. Of these, 54 patients were waiting at the Aberdeen IVF Centre, 139 at the Dundee IVF Centre, 376 at the Edinburgh IVF Centre and 438 at the Glasgow IVF Centre. For the Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh IVF Centres together at 31 December 2025, there were 514 patients waiting. Of these, 50 patients were waiting at the Aberdeen IVF Centre, 113 at the Dundee IVF Centre and 351 at the Edinburgh IVF Centre.

Close

Quarterly trend of number of patients screened across Scotland by time band

Background

IVF is an effective method of assisted reproductive technology used to treat infertility. This includes intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) for male infertility. Where this publication refers to IVF, it includes IVF and ICSI. One full cycle of IVF includes ovulation induction, egg retrieval, fertilisation and transfer of fresh embryos, followed by freezing of suitable embryos and subsequent replacement of these provided the couple still fulfil the access criteria.

Each NHS Board in Scotland commissions cycles of IVF from one of the four specialist tertiary Centres providing NHS treatment (Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow).

This is the third release of statistics following the implementation of the Scottish Government's revised Waiting Times Guidance which was published in December 2023 and implemented by PHS in July 2025. Our analysis shows minimal impact on IVF Waiting Times and therefore trend analysis across the time series is considered to be comparable. More information is available in the full report.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be 25 August 2026.