Fertility watchdog chief voted out of job

The chief executive of the official fertility watchdog body has been forced to leave after a unanimous vote of no confidence by its members.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) said in a brief statement that Dr Maureen Dalziel was leaving with immediate effect after being asked to stand down by the authority's chairman, Suzi Leather.

No reason was given for the no-confidence vote by the HFEA members, 18 months after Dr Dalziel, who had wanted to modernise the body, was appointed by the Secretary of State for Health, Alan Milburn. But a clash of management styles was seen in some quarters as the reason for her abrupt departure.

Ms Leather said: "I am not at liberty to discuss the vote of no confidence, but I can assure you that there are no implications of personal impropriety and the matter is not related to the authority's investigation of incidents at licensed centres."

Those cases included a blunder in April this year at a clinic in Tooting, south London, when two women patients had the wrong embryos transferred to their wombs. Another took place at Leeds General Infirmary when mixed-race twins were born to a white couple after a black man's sperm was accidentally used.

But Dr Dalziel has said Britain has the best-regulated IVF treatment in the world. "That is why so many women come here from abroad for treatment," she said.