Consultation outcome

Draft guidance for fertility clinics on consumer law

From:: Competition and Markets Authority
Published: 3 November 2020
Last updated: 15 June 2021 — See all updates

Read the full outcome

Consultation response

Ref: CMA143

PDF, 327 KB, 33 pages

Detail of outcome

The CMA has now published its final guidance for fertility clinics to help them understand and comply with their existing obligations under consumer law. The CMA has also published a guide and a short video for fertility patients to help them understand their consumer law rights when purchasing fertility treatment.

In December 2021 the CMA will begin a review of the sector’s compliance with consumer law. Should we find evidence of non-compliance we will consider whether further action such as enforcement is necessary.

Original consultation

Consultation description

The CMA invites interested parties to respond to the questions in Section 2 of the consultation document. The consultation will be of interest to:

Fertility clinics
Other businesses that operate in the fertility sector such as third party finance providers and those that offer complementary fertility treatment
Patients
The sector regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority
Professional bodies and organisations that represent the sector
Charities and patient representative groups
Enforcers of consumer law such as local authority Trading Standards services
Government departments

Please respond to as many of the questions as you can and support your answers with any evidence or examples you may have by email to ConsumerLawIVFTeam@cma.gov.uk by no later than 5pm on Friday 29 January 2021.

The CMA plans to publish in Spring 2021 a final version of the consumer law guidance and an anonymised summary of responses to the consultation. Alongside the final guidance, the CMA will publish guidance for IVF patients to help raise awareness of their consumer rights.

These documents will be available on the IVF consumer law guidance webpage and respondents will be notified when they are available.

Documents

Consultation document: Draft consumer law guidance

PDF, 199 KB, 14 pages