Bourn Hall Fertility Clinic strengthens compliance and fertility treatment safety with Fertility Consent

About Bourn Hall Fertility Clinic

Bourn Hall Fertility Clinic, the world’s first IVF clinic responsible for the conception of the first IVF baby, is committed to its founding vision of being ‘pioneers in treatment and experts in care’. Bourn Hall’s clinics offer a variety of IVF treatments, each with its own robust standards and process.

Bourn Hall wanted to offer patients a digital consent process compliant with HFEA standards. This would assure informed consent while easily integrating with the clinic’s patient database for consistent patient records.

One of the most regulated therapy areas, fertility, involves a thorough informed consent process. This includes multiple detailed forms, identity checks and educational documents, as well as multiple clinic visits.

Many of these clinic visits are to discuss and physically sign paperwork. With each form taking a minimum of 15 minutes to read and complete, this part is a significant proportion of the consent process. These forms are an essential element of the fertility process and treatment cannot take place until all paperwork is completed correctly. From a patient perspective, it is important that information and guidance is provided on every element of treatment and that paperwork is signed with informed consent.

The solution

Fertility Consent’s custom branded portal for Bourn Hall includes informative video content to guide patients through the treatment process as well as the relevant legal and medical forms for their personalised treatment. Bourn Hall can include its own materials as part of the platform, including videos and additional guidance, alongside the required consent forms.

All patient data is anonymised and forms signed through Fertility Consent are digitally sealed, providing non-reputable evidence that the document has not been tampered with. Completed forms are exported to the individual’s record in Bourn Hall’s patient database ensuring there is a clear audit trail of all completed forms.

Providing forms and educational materials via the Fertility Consent portal lets patients digest information in their own time and sign at a pace that they are comfortable with. This can take place at home, thereby maximising any appointment time for queries that patients may have for Bourn Hall’s experienced nurses.

For Bourn Hall Fertility Clinic, Fertility Consent provides a consistent, compliant consent process tailored to a patient’s treatment and minimises form incompletion and errors.

Providing services during a pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic and UK lockdown affected fertility treatment and Bourn Hall was closed temporarily in line with government guidance. Patient and staff safety were of utmost importance and Bourn Hall wanted to ensure the clinic could continue to provide services as soon as it was safe to do so.

Bourn Hall made the decision to allow patients to sign forms at home in order to prevent delays and to ensure patients could continue with the consent process without having to visit the clinic.

With the use of Fertility Consent, patients could sign forms in the safety and comfort of their own homes, eliminating unnecessary clinic visits and any potential spread of the virus via paper forms, and ensuring the safety of patients and clinic staff.

In order to allow patients back to the clinic, MD Consents developed an additional training module for Bourn Hall’s fertility platform to provide new guidance and training to staff ahead of their return to work in line with HFEA’s guidelines. Staff completed a covid-19 code of conduct declarations, health assessment forms and training courses via the platform and electronically signed additional documentation to enable them to treat patients safely in the clinic.