Setting our sights on the future

As the new Chair of Veterinary Nurses Council, one aspect of my role that I was really keen to get more involved with was helping to continue the work of the VN Futures project, a joint project with the BVNA, which aims to improve and advance the veterinary nursing profession.

Thanks to the great work of my predecessor Liz Cox, who as Vice-Chair of VN Council still plays a vital role in the project, the VN Futures Board (which has been recently reformed), members of the various working groups and the staff at the RCVS, much progress has been made since the launch of the VN Futures Report and Action Plan two years ago at the Vet Futures Summit.

As keen followers of the project will know – the project was split into six streams of work: creating a sustainable workforce; structured and rewarding career paths; confident, resilient, healthy and well-supported workforce; a proactive role in One Health; maximising the potential of nurses; and a clarified and bolstered VN role via a reformed Schedule 3.

Following the publication of the report working parties covering each of these areas were formed to look at how we could bring action into fruition over the next five years. There has been so much work completed in the last two years that it is impossible to go through everything in this blog however the key highlights are:

• the Schedule 3 consultation which had over 10,000 responses and has led to us publishing case studies on how to navigate Schedule 3 in practice and is feeding into the Legislation Working Party Review which is considering legislative reform of the veterinary professions, including veterinary nurses;
• the consultation on post-registration qualifications following which we are looking to introduce two new advanced veterinary nursing qualifications early next year with a view to developing an advanced veterinary nurse status;
• forging links with the Royal College of Nursing to help raise the One Health agenda and doing some joint media work on smoking cessation by highlighting the impact that first and second hand smoke can have on the health of pets;
• two seminars looking at issues around how to make the career more sustainable for veterinary nurses. One of these events tackled working practices and culture and how veterinary nurses, and particularly those with families, could be kept in the profession by encouraging job shares and more flexible working. The other event looked at career progression for veterinary nurses and how they can gain the skills, experience and, crucially, confidence needed to progress; and
• the fact that many nurses have signed up to the RCVS Leadership course which demonstrates that there is a keenness amongst veterinary nurses to develop their leadership and managerial skills. Hopefully this will help encourage a whole new generation of veterinary nursing leaders!

This is by no means an exhaustive list and there is still plenty of work to be doing. Some of the areas we will be looking at during the rest of this year and into 2019 include how we can increase the number of training practices to ensure that Training Practice numbers aren’t limiting the growth of the veterinary nursing profession and how we can better coordinate the providers of veterinary nursing education through a VN Schools Council.

However, probably the most exciting work, from a personal perspective, will be to encourage veterinary nurses to have a more ambassadorial role both in the veterinary professions and society at large.

Whilst we are all great at talking about and promoting our patients needs we aren’t always as good at promoting ourselves as veterinary nurses– and that’s something that the VN Futures project is looking to change.

We’ve already got some career case studies available to view on the VN Futures website and we are now teaming up with STEM to develop careers ambassadors, and designing careers materials to go into schools, as well as exploring using the media (including broadcast) to help promote what veterinary nurses do. In addition to this we continue to encourage all nurses to talk to clients and promote the crucial role they play as a vital part of the veterinary team.

There will be more exciting updates as we continue to work towards the ambitions so please continue to check both the RCVS website and the VN Futures website for updates, and get involved as much as possible.