LGBTQIA+ groups

LGBTQIA+ Projects

Project title

Equity in growing a family: The impact of inequalities in NHS funding for LGBTQ+ couples fertility treatment 

What we’re doing

This research explores how funding inequalities affect LGBTQ+ couples seeking to grow their family through fertility treatment.

Currently, LGBTQ+ couples where neither partner produces sperm face significant additional financial barriers to access NHS-funded IVF, with most areas of England requiring self-funding of a specific number of cycles of intrauterine insemination (IUI). Further additional costs include screening tests and donor sperm. The exact requirements vary considerably in different geographical regions, depending on the local Integrated Care Board.

This issue was raised by two members of our Shaping Family Wellbeing community research group, with personal lived experience of how these funding inequalities create financial and emotional strain. They have since joined a lived experience group, alongside four others from across the UK, to help steer the project. We are also collaborating with LGBT Mummies to design the research and ensure the findings contribute to their Fertility Justice campaign.

How we’re doing it

We have carried out a survey and interviews to understand how unclear information and unequal NHS funding impact people’s lives. We have produced a policy brief and inputted our findings to the NHS England LGBT+ Health Evidence review. We intend to produce an infographic to share the findings with LGBQT+ people currently going through this process, and write a paper with our lived experience group.

Research inclusion: LGBTQ+ couples

We co-developed the research study with our lived experience group, and together made several key decisions to improve the inclusiveness of this research:

1. We initially planned to collect data only via qualitative interviews. However, the lived experience group suggested that we include a survey to enable a wider range of people to take part in the research in a way that was comfortable for them, with the option to opt-in to a follow-up interview.
2. The survey was advertised widely through different approaches including social media, in-person flyers, and circulated via team members’ networks. The support of LGBT Mummies to disseminate the survey via their social media channels made a huge difference to ensure it reached more people.
3. People’s responses to the survey about their own demographics and experiences were used to ensure we included a diverse range of people in the follow-up interviews, including people with disabilities, people who are neurodivergent, people from marginalised ethnic groups, and people who do and do not yet have children.
4. We worked with our lived experience group to interpret the interview data and coproduce a list of financial and emotional impacts of the inequalities in funding. This ensured that the interpretations were grounded in the experiences of those who have been through this process themselves.

Team

The project is led by Dr Kate Morton, University of York. Other members of the research team are:

Dr Zoe Darwin, University of Huddersfield

Dr Mari Greenfield, Open University

Dr Sarah Blower, University of York

LGBT Mummies

Our lived experience group

This independent research was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Yorkshire and Humber ARC (NIHR200166) and the University of York SPARKS initiative.