NHS treatments to help couples have children should be made a low priority in Oxfordshire to save cash, some senior medics believe.

A committee of NHS staff said IVF cost too much, its absence did not damage lives enough and couples could adopt instead.

It comes despite Elizabeth Pearce getting IVF and giving birth earlier this month after telling her PCT, in Ealing, West London, that the treatment is a human right.

Last night parents who have benefited from IVF criticised the decision and said couples could be left heartbroken as a result of not being given the chance to try for a baby.

Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire, Berkshire East, Berkshire West and Buckinghamshire Priorities Committee (MOBBB) said IVF and all other “assisted reproduction techniques” should be a low priority to be “consistent”.

The opinion has been backed by NHS Oxfordshire’s clinical executive committee of senior medical staff.

However, another committee which feeds into decision-making on treatment for the area has said IVF should be provided.

Claire Cousins, who failed to get IVF despite going through the menopause at 24, said: “It is not self-inflicted; it is the worst thing a woman could go through.

“I could not look forward. I felt ‘How am I going to continue with the rest of my life?’”

Mrs Cousins and scaffolder husband Gary now have a five-month-old son, Harry, because a London clinic offered free treatment after reading of her plight in the Oxford Mail in 2009.

The Grove resident, now 26, said: “You do not realise how heartbreaking it is until you go through it.”

Richard MacKenzie, 31, who campaigned with wife Jackie for NHS IVF after being told they were too young, said: “I do not see any reason that they would be able to say it is a low priority after the amount of stress and pressure it puts on a couple.

“We pay into the system. We look after ourselves. We don’t have to burden the NHS.

“But when we needed it, we had the door slammed in our face.”

A private clinic also helped the Witney couple and baby Bobby was born a year ago.

MOBBB said there was a “lack of evidence” that childless couples “experience significantly worse outcomes for mental or physical health”.

And it “took into account the current financial context”, with £20m needing to be saved across the South East.

Oxfordshire’s NHS IVF bill soared after it agreed in 2009 to treat people aged 30 to 35, instead of 35 to 39.

Cases rose from 102, costing £199,145, in 2008/2009 to 240, costing £663,747, in 2009/2010 and 167, with a £441,172 bill, in 2010/2011.

Oxfordshire couples fitting the criteria get one NHS cycle of IVF, but the proposal would make couples a low priority.

MOBBB said “adoption offers couples an opportunity to become ‘parents’ and have the benefits of family life”.

IVF funding decisions are set by the South Central Specialist Commissioning Group, covering the South East.

It takes advice from MOBBB and the Southampton, Hampshire, Isle of Wight and Portsmouth priorities committee (SHIP), which does not want to downgrade IVF.

The aim is to get consistency in treatments available and avoid a postcode lottery.

The two committees will now meet senior managers.

National NHS guidance says IVF should be provided to patients aged 23 to 39.

An NHS Oxfordshire spokesman said: “No decision has yet been reached on how to progress the issue of assisted conception.

“Therefore, the policy, as published on the NHS Oxfordshire website, remains unchanged.”

It said: “When considering individual requests the PCT also takes into account, as appropriate, statute law, statutory directions [and] national guidance.”