Fertility treatment and work: what I wish I'd known

As a GP and occupational physician, I see how fertility treatment collides with working life: the appointments that will not bend, the side effects nobody warned you about, the meeting you sit through two days after a failed transfer. As someone who has been through IVF myself, I know exactly what that collision feels like from the inside.

Nobody prepared me for the work side of treatment. The clinics prepare you for the medical part. Your employer, if you tell them, usually wants to help but does not know how. And you are left in the middle, translating between the two while going through one of the hardest things you will ever do.

Here is what I wish someone had told me at the start.

You do not have to tell your employer, but silence has a cost

There is no legal duty to disclose fertility treatment in the UK. Plenty of people keep it private, and that is a valid choice. But adjustments, flexibility for appointments and genuine support usually only become possible once someone at work knows something. The decision is not all or nothing: you can choose what to share, with whom, and how much. I wrote a practical framework for making that decision, free to read: telling your employer about IVF.

Time off is a negotiation, not an entitlement

There is currently no statutory right to time off for fertility appointments in the UK. Most people use annual leave, unpaid leave or goodwill. Some employers have fertility policies; many do not. Knowing what to ask for, and how to frame it, changes those conversations completely: your rights during IVF and fertility treatment at work.

Your GP and occupational health can carry more of this than you think

A well-written GP summary or an occupational health referral can turn a vague conversation with your manager into a structured plan. Most people never ask, because nobody tells them these routes exist.

This gap between treatment and work is exactly why I built OccuFertility: a free, clinician-authored toolkit for navigating fertility treatment at work. It gives you letters for your GP, briefs for your manager and templates for occupational health, so you spend your energy on treatment, not on translation.

If you are an employer or HR lead reading this, there is a free workplace fertility check that scores your organisation's support against UK best practice in ten questions.

Treatment is hard enough. The work side should not be the part that breaks you.

Dr Divpreet Sacha, MBChB MRCGP DipOccMed