IVF doctor is to offer fertility treatment at a luxury spa

Britain’s most controversial IVF doctor is to offer fertility treatment at a luxury spa. Mohamed Taranissi has teamed up with Champneys to provide patients with part of their IVF care in a stately home health farm. For the first time, patients will be able to undergo blood tests and scans at a spa rather than travel to a fertility clinic, with the option of going from IVF checks to pampering sessions in a bid to boost their chance of becoming pregnant. Professor Taranissi said the aim of the venture was to provide care closer to home. He said patients did not have to book into the spa itself but could simply pop in for their fertility tests and then leave. However, Champneys is offering IVF couples a discount on a spa break built around the medical tests. ‘It is not always practical for patients to spend ten days in London having blood tests and scans. I believe this will eventually become the norm,’ says Prof Taranissi, who has become a contentious figure in the fertility world after using unproven techniques. He was the subject of a criminal investigation and has had frequent rows with the fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryo Authority. But he is also the most successful IVF doctor in the country. Among under-35s, his clinic has a success rate double the national average, making him one of Britain’s richest doctors, reportedly earning £25 million in a year. Prof Taranissi said he hopes his latest venture will be rolled out across the country, allowing patients to have two weeks’ worth of monitoring, blood tests and scans near their own homes in satellite clinics or a spa hotel. Under the new venture with Champneys in Tring, Hertfordshire, patients will have only the first and last of their appointments at Prof Taranissi’s Central London clinic, the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre, with blood tests and scans carried out at the health spa. Clare Lewis-Jones, chief executive of Infertility Network UK, says: ‘IVF is a delicate and complex science. We would urge patients to look carefully at the success rates for individual clinics before embarking on treatment.’ The IVF spa package will be available from September. Article: 29th July 2012 www.dailymail.co.uk