Responsibility for regulating fertility treatment and use of human tissue in the UK should be transferred to the Care Quality Commission and research in these areas to the Health Research Authority, the Department of Health has recommended in a consultation published on 28 June.

The consultation is part of government plans, announced in July 2010, to halve the number of NHS quangos (quasi-autonomous national governmental organisations) to save an estimated £180m (€215m; $280m) by 2014-15 to help reach its target of reducing the NHS’s administrative costs by 45%.1 The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) and the Human Tissue Authority (HTA) were kept temporarily but were set to be abolished by April 2013.

After hearing arguments from organisations to retain the two bodies that currently regulate fertility treatment and human tissue the department said its preferred option is to transfer regulation to …