Fertility experts sharply criticised the lack of IVF provision in Britain yesterday as new figures suggested it was near the bottom of the European league.

Only Croatia offered less treatment to couples desperate for children among 11 countries which reported IVF cycles, while another list of nine states put the UK last for the percentage of babies born using various assisted reproduction techniques.

Denmark provides three times as much IVF as Britain, according to the latest figures, for 2002. While in the UK only 1.3% of babies are born through some form of fertility treatment, the figure is over 4% in Denmark, 3.6% in Slovenia and 3% in Iceland. Much of this can be explained by lack of state-funded provision. Only one in four treatment cycles carried out by clinics in Britain is at present provided by the NHS.

Scotland does offer three free cycles but in England and Wales a guarantee of one free cycle was only introduced in April, although the longer term aim is for three. Provision so far is extremely patchy and some couples have to wait up to five years for treatment.

This infuriates doctors and couples since a woman's age affects the likelihood of a successful conception. Belgium offers six free cycles, Denmark five and France three, or more at the discretion of doctors.

Claire Brown, of the Infertility Network UK and chair of the European Infertility Alliance, said that if England did not sharpen up its record quickly "every infertile parent will move up to Scotland."

Anders Andersen, head of a fertility clinic at Copenhagen University, said: "To be honest, the UK needs to catch up. It is lagging behind in this area."

Paul Devroey, of Brussels Free University, Belgium, said countries' results depended "on the vision politicians have about the real value of this procedure. In Italy, IVF is perceived as something unreasonable. Europe has a long way to go."

Francolise Shenfield, of University College Hospital, London, of the society's ethics and law task force, said that in Britain, where couples lived often determined whether they had treatment within six months or went on a long waiting list.

Bill Ledger, of Sheffield University, revealed that families conceiving triplets by IVF in Britain cost the NHS nearly 10 times as much as a single baby, £32,354 compared to £3,313. This was because mother and children were far more likely to suffer health complications.

Clinical practice in cutting the number of embryos transferred in IVF has helped cut the incidence of triplets from 4% to under 1% in 10 years. This is expected to fall further under stricter rules for clinics.

· Infertility may be affecting more men than women, it was suggested yesterday. Male-related reproduction problems account for more known cases among couples undergoing IVF in Britain, and now a technique devised to overcome problems of sperm quality and quantity has overtaken conventional IVF as the most often used technology across Europe.

The use of ICSI, where a single sperm is injected into an egg, in contrast to the older method of mixing hundreds of thousands of sperm with eggs, has not yet reached the same proportions in Britain.

Cycles per 1m inhabitants (2002)

Denmark 2,106

Finland 1,463

Slovenia 1,291

Iceland 1,243

Sweden 1,241

Netherlands 1,007

Norway 921

Switzerland 753

Hungary 671

UK 625

Croatia 589

% of infants born through assisted reproduction

Denmark 4.1

Slovenia 3.6

Iceland 3.0

Sweden 2.8

Finland 2.6

Norway 2.3

Germany 2.0

Hungary 1.9

UK 1.3