Hundreds of British couples are travelling abroad for IVF treatment every month, says the first study to evaluate the extent of “fertility tourism” around Europe.

Restricted access to fertility treatment on the NHS, the high cost of private therapy at domestic clinics and a serious shortage of donated eggs are driving couples to visit overseas clinics for help in starting a family.

Almost two thirds involve women over 40, who do not qualify for free IVF on the NHS. Britons are more likely than those from any other country to cite access to treatment as the chief reason for going abroad, the study reported. A private IVF cycle typically costs at least £4,000 in Britain — twice the amount charged in parts of Southern and Eastern Europe. IVF patients who need donated eggs are particularly likely to travel. Domestic donors are in short supply because of the removal of anonymity and tough rules against selling eggs.

Spain and the Czech Republic are prime destinations, due to laws allowing donors to be paid €900 (£765) and €500 respectively for eggs. British donors get no more than £250 in expenses.

The new figures come from a study that counted all overseas patients treated by 44 clinics in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland over a one-month period last autumn. The participating clinics performed 1,230 IVF cycles on overseas patients in this period, 53 involving British women. As the study ran only for a month, in a small fraction of Europe’s clinics, the true number of Britons who travel for treatment each year will probably run into thousands.

Françoise Shenfield, of University College Hospital, London, told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Amsterdam that she understood why couples might consider travelling, but they should know that foreign clinics were not regulated to UK standards. Many overseas doctors, for example, will transfer more than two embryos to the womb — a practice largely banned in Britain because of the high risk of causing hazardous twin and triplet pregnancies.

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