More than regulation

Welcome to our new blog section on the RCVS website. These days, when everything has to be tweetable, or headline-worthy, it’s nice to have space to reflect on some of the broader activities of the College.

There will be the odd blog from me as CEO, but we hope the majority will be from individuals in different parts of the organisation – staff and Council – such as those working in lifelong learning, within our professional conduct process, our advice team and our Practice Standards team.

I am writing this from the departures lounge at Washington Dulles Airport, having just attended a global seminar on wellbeing and stress, organised by the Global Forum on Health Professional Education at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. I have been here to speak about the RCVS Mind Matters Initiative, and in particular our joint mental health anti-stigma campaign with the Doctors’ Support Network, &Me.

Snowflake, anyone?

The conference was attended by Deans of medical faculties from around the world, and presidents of bodies involved in the medical professions. The veterinary profession was a small voice there but I was credited in the chair’s summation with being the most provoking contributor. I guess I’ve always been small and annoying!

Why the provocation? Apparently I caused this in response to a question about why the ‘younger generation’ couldn’t just deal with the stresses and strains of practice – medical, veterinary – as previous generations had.

To which my answer was – suicide statistics will tell you ‘keeping calm and carrying on’ has not been a universally positive strategy thus far; if the new generation are demanding better working conditions we should applaud their courage; if they need more support because they have been parented by society to require it, then it is our duty to provide it. OK it took me a little longer than that and I may have used some more evocative language… but you get the point.

We talk about a recruitment crisis in the veterinary profession and the need for more graduates, but quicker than building a new veterinary school or changing legislation will be to address what it is about veterinary practice, and/or ever-increasing client expectations, that continues to place undue stress on many within it and cause them to leave so rapidly. We also need to analyse and understand the gap that Vet Futures found between the expectations of young veterinary professionals and the reality of clinical practice life. 

Taking up the challenge

And these are challenges the College is well placed to address. We are known for tackling fitness to practise issues and ensuring vets and nurses meet the standards set by their peers. But working in the public interest is about more than this. It’s about ensuring the profession as a whole is sustainable, fit for purpose and full of individuals who are able to work to the very best of their abilities.

Over the last few years, largely catalysed by Vet Futures, we have really taken up this challenge. I attended the British Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA) Congress earlier in the month. It was my 25^th year – before joining the RCVS in 2005, my career focused on PR in the animal health and agricultural industries.

It was my 14^th year there with the RCVS and a good opportunity to reflect on how our role has changed over the last decade or so. It used to be that the team on the RCVS stand would steel itself to be challenged over changes to the (then) Guide to Professional Conduct – I remember the year the new medicines legislation came in as being particularly challenging.

Now, visitors to our stand are asking about mental health, leadership and innovation. We are still asked the tricky questions about ethical and professional issues – and that’s only right – but the conversation has most definitely moved on to how we can work positively and proactively, for the good of animal health and welfare, the profession and the public.

Watching our exuberant stand team delighting in telling vets and veterinary nurses about the positive activities of the College, makes me proud that we are truly living up to our strapline of setting, maintaining and advancing standards.

There are some, no doubt, who argue that we should stick to our regulatory knitting – the setting and maintaining part – but we are unique in that we are a Royal College that has a regulatory function, which means we can do more than this. When I talk to other regulators at home and overseas, I feel they are often envious of this potential.

So, when a room full of eminent medical professionals from around the globe tells me that what the UK veterinary profession is doing around mental health and stress reduction is making them uncomfortable, and challenging their perceptions of what a regulator can do, my first reaction may be a terribly British shrinking under the table, but my second is to be proud of what the RCVS, its members and associates, has already achieved and will strive to achieve in the future.