Fertility clinics: complying with consumer law
How to provide appropriate patient information, ensure fair commercial practices and terms and conditions and handle complaints.
Documents
Details
This guidance was published prior to the unfair commercial practices provisions of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act) coming into force on 6 April 2025. These provisions contain broadly similar prohibitions against unfair and misleading commercial practices as under the previous legislation, the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs). More detail on the legislative differences between the DMCC Act and the CPRs is available in the technical note. For further guidance, read Unfair commercial practices: CMA207.
For further guidance on how the unfair commercial practices provisions of the DMCC Act apply in this sector, in particular the price transparency provisions, read Update report on the CMA’s work on a voluntary pricing initiative to help fertility patients compare clinics’ prices.
This guidance sets out the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) views on how consumer law applies to clinics in the fertility sector.
This guidance covers:
- information provision – what information clinics should provide to prospective patients and existing patients and when
- commercial practices - what clinics should do to ensure that their commercial practices are fair, in particular to ensure that their commercial practices meet the objective standard of professional diligence
- contract terms – what clinics should do to ensure that their terms are fair
- complaints handling – what clinics should do to ensure that their complaints handling processes are accessible, clear and fair
- the key applicable consumer protection legislation - Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (‘CPRs’); Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (‘CCRs’); and Parts I and II Consumer Rights Act 2015 (‘CRA’)
It does not provide advice on other laws or rules, for example those enforced by the sector regulator, the HFEA, or the Care Quality Commission or equivalents, or those on medical regulation or other guidelines relevant to the sector.