The fertility clinic that transferred a woman’s last embryo into another patient has apologised for losing the embryos of another couple.

The latest couple, who do not want to be identified, said that they were devastated by the loss of their embryos at the IVF Wales clinic in Cardiff in 2004, which happened when the tube and needle transferring them to the woman’s womb became disconnected.

The clinic said in a statement that an apology had been made to the couple and that the incident happened because of an equipment error.

The man, from the South Wales valleys, told BBC Radio Wales that the doctor dealing with them had at first been looking at the wrong notes.

“It became apparent the doctor was referring to a different couple’s notes, from Swansea, I believe. When we raised that issue, that we weren’t actually from Swansea, they realised. If they can’t get something as relatively straightforward as record-keeping right it doesn’t bode well,” he said.

His partner said that when they went back to the clinic for the embryo transfer, “unfortunately during this time they lost our embryos. I can’t put it into words, I really can’t. I just cried. We were devastated. We viewed our embryos seconds before it happened. You look at these embryos and think they’re your babies.”

The couple decided to talk about their experience after hearing about the couple from Bridgend, South Wales, whose last remaining embryo was implanted in the wrong woman by mistake. The woman who had had the wrong embryo implanted had a termination when she found out about the error.

The Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust has paid the couple, identified only as Deborah and Paul, whose embryo was wrongly transplanted an unidentified sum after admitting liability for gross failures in care. The couple had been hoping to try for a second baby with their last remaining embryo in 2007 when they were told that it had been implanted in another woman.

The mistake occurred when more than one patient’s embryos were temporarily stored in an incubator. A trainee embryologist failed to carry out “fail-safe” witnessing procedures.

The trust said that systems had since been improved, in line with recommendations made in a report by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority investigators in relation to the case.

In the latest incident the couple were not charged and they accepted the offer of a further free cycle of treatment.

Janet Evans, the clinical director of IVF Wales, said: “This was an unfortunate but extremely rare failure in a standard piece of equipment used for embryo transfer around the world. We have since changed the equipment that we use. The incident was investigated by IVF Wales staff and a personal apology was made.

“The incident was reported to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) as part of the incident alert register so other centres could benefit from the information.

“IVF Wales is regularly inspected, as are all units in the UK, by the HFEA. The unit maintains its licence with no conditions, which demonstrates HFEA satisfaction with our quality of care.”

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