In mid-2020, as Covid lockdowns gripped the country, Luke and his wife decided to start a family. After 18 months without success, they saw their GP and were referred for tests. But for more than a year, Luke says, the focus was entirely on his wife – appointments in her name, paperwork that prompted calls to her, his own details ignored. “At the heart of it, the whole system is based on the assumption that it’s a woman’s problem,” he says. “The male side gets totally overlooked.”
It took a failed round of IVF before Luke was told there might be an issue with his sperm. “I was like, ‘Now you’re telling me?’” he says. “There were things on my side that could have been looked into much sooner, rather than treating me as an accessory to the process.”
“Luke’s male fertility issue was overlooked for over a year while the system focused on his wife.”
Infertility affects roughly one in six couples, and about half of those cases are linked to male problems – either alone or alongside female causes. Under NICE guidelines, couples who have been trying for 12 months should be assessed together, with parallel checks for men and women. Yet experts say men are often sidelined. “There can be genuine exclusion even if it’s unintentional,” says Prof Bola Grace from University College London. “Men tell us it can happen across services – in how care is delivered, in fertility clinics and in counselling.”
A 2019 study led by Grace found many men wanted to be more involved but felt unheard. The result, she argues, is a self‑perpetuating cycle: services don’t include men, so men engage less, reinforcing the idea they are not interested. “We’ve created a cycle where men are excluded, but then they’re also blamed for not showing up,” she says.
This has real consequences – not just for men, but for women, who end up doing “the coping, the planning, the worrying, the decision-making”. Problems can be picked up later, tests more invasive, and the path through fertility care tougher and more expensive.