RCVS ... Remote Controlling and Very Secretive ?




The veterinary profession is in trouble. Put simply there are too few of us to run the surgeries, visit the farms or perform the public health duties on which so much of British industry depends. It’s been going this way for decades, but rather than tackle the difficult business of structural reform we imported the solution instead. At one point more than half of all vets registering to practice in the UK came from the EU, post Brexit that number plummeted by two thirds. The spike in pet ownership during Covid was the last straw. 

In November 2021 the profession’s governing body, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, convened a ‘summit’ meeting in London to address the crisis. After some party games to get everybody in the mood, the eighty handpicked ‘stakeholders’ were invited to ‘co-create’ and ‘ideate,’ to ‘look for the thoughts on the edge of their thinking’ and to come up with innovative solutions to ‘wicked problems.’ 

If ugly neologisms, infantile role-play and meaningless jargon could cut it then we’d be home and dry, but alas. The verdict of the BVA (British Veterinary Association) on the day’s festivities was blunt and to the point. One officer described the profession’s response as a ‘collective eye roll.’ The Chair of the Policy Committee was more forthright, it was he said, ‘Rubbish.’ Not so much a ‘summit’ then, more a PR flop at base camp. 

But if the College's response to the crisis is make believe, the crisis itself is not. Unprecedented numbers are leaving the profession and of those who do, almost half have been qualified for less than four years. A logical response to this premature exodus might be to review the selection procedure for the undergraduate degree course, with perhaps more weight placed on maturity, practicality and vocation, and a bit less on the purely academic. Unfortunately the ’Workforce Action Plan’ that followed up on the ‘summit’ makes no mention of this, but instead emphasises the support available to struggling new-grads from the, ‘numerous charities, membership bodies and training providers.’ It’s a bit like fitting a car with square wheels and then providing after-market advice on how best to drive it. 

No one knows how the 'Stakeholders' were chosen (friends and family perhaps ?), their identities are a closely kept secret (despite numerous photographs in the College newsletters) although I am pleased to say that after two requests submitted under the Freedom of Information Act I can tell you that out of the 80 gathered there were 8 independent practitioners ... 8.

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