Bourn Hall Clinic

Bourn Hall Clinic in Bourn, Cambridgeshire, UK, is a centre for the treatment of infertility. The original building, Bourn Hall, is about 400 years old. Since becoming a medical centre, it has been greatly extended.

Bourn Hall Clinic was founded in 1980 by IVF pioneers Mr Patrick Steptoe and Professor Robert Edwards, who were responsible for the conception of Louise Brown, the world's first IVF or test-tube baby in 1978. Since its foundation the clinic has assisted in the conception of over 10,000 babies.

Following the death of Patrick Steptoe in 1988, Peter Brinsden was appointed Medical Director in March 1989. The current Medical Director, appointed in 2006, is Dr Thomas Mathews MD FRCOG.

Bourn Hall Clinic is one of five fertility centres selected by the NHS East of England Specialised Commissioning Group to provide treatment to patients in the region. As of 1 May 2009, childless couples in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire will be able to access up to three cycles of IVF, plus a further three frozen embryo transfers.

A breakthrough that occurred in Bourn Hall’s early days was the application of cryobiology to IVF, allowed embryos to be frozen for transfer at a later date. The first "frozen babies" were born in 1984. Bourn Hall also led the way in offering in vitro fertilisation surrogacy. They treated the first couple in the United Kingdom in 1988 and the first IVF surrogacy child was born in 1989.

The world’s first baby born as a result of directly injecting a single sperm into the centre of an oocyte was conceived at Bourn Hall. Since this birth in 1992 "intracytoplasmic sperm injection" or ICSI has been adopted by IVF clinics around the world.

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