An expert in patient safety has delivered a blistering attack on the UK’s fertility watchdog after embryo mix-ups in fertility clinics surfaced in the media recently. Professor Brian Toft, of Coventry University, who chaired an inquiry into a similar scandal in 2002, said that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority was not "fit for purpose" – that’s British officialese for as useless as a chocolate teapot.

The embryos of three patients at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London were destroyed and their IVF cycles were stopped after the bungles in February.

According to the Sunday Times, a furious Professor Toft has told the UK’s chief medical officer that the HFEA is failing to protect the 37,000 women who have fertility treatment every year. The HFEA is responsible for regulating IVF clinics. "I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be undergoing that kind of treatment and then for someone to say ‘We haven’t done the job properly and, as a consequence, you have lost your embryos’. It is just beyond belief." In his letter he wrote: "The HFEA should be reformed if it is ever to be fit for purpose".

The head of the HFEA, Alan Doran, seemed unflustered by the fuss: "It is not the case that we have failed to investigate serious incidents at Guy’s, nor is it the case that we have not implemented the Toft recommendations. But, of course, we can always do better and we welcome the chance to work with those who can help us improve." ~ London Times, May 3