Government backs tighter rules on fertility treatment

Britain's fertility regulator must make rigorous inspections of IVF clinics to ensure that the safety of patients is not compromised and that they receive adequate treatment, the Government said yesterday.

Ministers authorised a big increase in funding for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), but ordered its powers to be reviewed after MPs accused it of being out of touch with public opinion.

A report said the regulator should be more open with the public on its rulings, particularly when they were of "ethical importance". The shake-up comes after several scandals involving fertility clinics, including the birth of black twins to a white couple who used in-vitro fertilisation.

The HFEA was criticised earlier this year for allowing an IVF clinic to try to make a "designer baby" – one with bone marrow suitable for transplantation into a three-year-old sibling who was critically ill.

Campaigners who opposed the decision won the right to appeal. They argued in court that the authority had no power to license embryo selection by "tissue-typing".

The Health minister Hazel Blears, who made the funding announcement, acknowledged that the HFEA faced "an increasingly difficult task as greater numbers of people undergo fertility treatment and the available technology develops rapidly".

But Ms Blears said it was "essential that the HFEA is a strong and effective regulator. The safety of patients and quality assurance of the treatment they receive must not be compromised by these challenges."

The changes to the regulator's working practices were proposed by MPs on the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee.

Their report, Developments in Human Genetics and Reproduction, published this year, said that the watchdog had overstepped its powers by ruling on the designer baby case.

The Government ordered more detailed inspections of fertility clinics and more training for inspectors so they could spot unscrupulous practices and sub-standard quality controls. It authorised an increase in the watchdog's annual funding from little over £2m a year to £5.5m.

The Government also approved the authority's proposals to increase its licence-fee income in 2003-04 to £4m.

The Government urged the regulator to consider carefully the public implications of controversial ethical rulings, saying it was "essential that the HFEA should take account of public opinion in reaching its decisions". The report said: "It is vital that the HFEA communicates its decisions and the reasons behind them clearly so that, so far as possible, the public understands the basis for decisions of ethical importance."

The fertility regulator welcomed the extra funding and said that it would use the money to "introduce an even more robust regulatory system and to be more open about the work that we do".

Suzi Leather, who chairs the HFEA, said: "Throughout the last decade, services have expanded enormously and expectations of regulation have increased. The increased funding will allow the HFEA to make significant improvements in the way that it operates."