RCVS Day 2018 speeches - Liz Cox, outgoing Chair of VN Council

I would like to share with you a story that is full of passion – a love affair. Now that I have your attention, I’m afraid it’s not some exciting gossip, but hopefully a story that you, or someone you know, can relate to.

It’s about what we do, why we do it and how it relates to our members. It’s about my love affair with veterinary nursing - the infatuation, the honeymoon period, the itch a few years later, the getting back together. It is both my story and the story of the veterinary nursing profession through time, and the challenges we face, both then and now.

So why veterinary nursing? As an impressionable 13 year old with a rather fetching 80s perm, I had a traumatic visit to the vets with our elderly family Jack Russell terrier, Susie. She had a closed pyometra and accompanying renal disease, and our family had to decide between surgery or euthanasia.

Ahead of its time, this practice offered us a consultation with a vet nurse to discuss the care Susie would need. In walked newly qualified VN, Sarah. She was a direct person but was kind, understanding and explained the options again, what our role was and, here’s the key word, she was inspirational. I wanted to be a Sarah.

We elected for surgery, and Sarah unfailingly kept us up to date, informed, and reassured about Susie’s care. Though Susie did come home, a few months later we had to return for that final visit. Upsetting as it was, guess who was also there at the end? Sarah, with her kindness, support and tissues.

"Ahead of its time, this practice offered us a consultation with a vet nurse to discuss the care Susie would need. In walked newly qualified VN, Sarah. She was a direct person but was kind, understanding and explained the options again, what our role was and, here’s the key word, she was inspirational. I wanted to be a Sarah."

Several years later after multiple work experience placements and numerous speculative job applications, I started as a TVN, still with that perm and with the newly-appointed Head Nurse, Sarah. Today nearly 30 years later Sarah is still a VN and continues in practice. She is one of our stayers.

I secured a place at one of only three colleges to offer vet nursing education. Today, we have over 70 such institutions. I met Sandra, a VN who had left nursing to become a human radiographer and had returned as a VN lecturer. She was a diversifier. 

After the initial excitement of qualifying, moving jobs and a few promotions, I hit a wall. I was stuck. There wasn’t any career progression or development for me. Having only qualified a few years previously, I left vet nursing. I was a leaver.

Career change was a real challenge, no matter what my CV said, I was in interviewers’ eyes a glorified kennel maid or the vet’s little helper. I am so glad today we have many more opportunities and improved public awareness of our role, although we do still have a long way to go.

I worked in the food industry and was readily offered that desired career progression. I also worked in sales and it was very lucrative. Neither provided that YES moment at the end of a long day. That moment in practice where you all pulled together, and made a difference to the client’s day, or the care of an animal. It was time to return to veterinary nursing. I became a returner

"One of the areas I am proudest about in my time with the RCVS has been the VN Futures project. I was certain that we needed to speak to nurses in person, to travel, to engage them, to listen and understand. We have numerous working parties that, importantly, are populated with nurses that wanted to be involved, that had that passion. One day, I hope that one of those nurses or others we have met will be standing where I am now."

I took a while to find the right practice. I moved across the country and worked in different types of practices and size. I enjoyed my job again, I attended numerous conferences, CPD evenings, and life changed with the arrival of children, but there was still a niggle there.

I wanted to contribute more to this great profession that had given me so much. It was talking to yet another inspirational VN that convinced me to take the leap and help shape the VN profession’s future. I just needed that push.

So here I am, hopefully paying back, being inspirational and, more importantly, helping nurses to develop themselves as well as our profession.

One of the areas I am proudest about in my time with the RCVS has been the VN Futures project. I was certain that we needed to speak to nurses in person, to travel, to engage them, to listen and understand.

We have numerous working parties that, importantly, are populated with nurses that wanted to be involved, that had that passion. One day, I hope that one of those nurses or others we have met will be standing where I am now.  

We developed six ambitions to achieve by 2020, all with 3 Rs in mind: recruitment, retention and returners. Above all, we need to ensure we have a workforce that is able to support a growing veterinary world in all of its areas, and we need to offer a career that is sustainable, well supported, rewarding, and has a structure. If we have leavers, it’s because they choose to, not because they have to.

I am very much a supporter of the idea that with challenges, come opportunities. This seems so very relevant to veterinary nursing right now. 

In 2015 RCVS launched a campaign to support legal protection for the title of veterinary nurse. Whilst unsuccessful, DEFRA suggested the opportunity to examine bolstering the role of the VN role via a reformed Schedule 3. This potentially will have a much wider impact, with both vets and VNs since stating a clear desire to develop Schedule 3 further for VNs.

Brexit provides another example of challenge and opportunity. Facing a potential reduction in the number of vets working in the UK, it makes sense to review our workforce as a whole. Not to replace vets with ‘mini-vets’, but to question how we are using our current VNs’ skills and training.

We are great at training nurses but historically not great at retaining them. What do we want our nurses of the future to do? What skills do they need? VN Council next year will be reviewing this alongside the post-registration qualifications.

A future RVN may have more a clear clinical career structure, a chance to become an advanced nurse practitioner, possibly with an enhanced role. Who knows, we might even have the first VN prescriber sitting here today!

This might sound like wishful thinking, but the future is rapidly changing and we need to ensure nursing keeps up with it. Technology, for example wearable devices, will massively change how we work and get information about our pets. This isn’t science fiction – my own dog already wears such a device.

The future is difficult to predict but it will certainly be different.

Veterinary nursing started in 1960s, much to the disapproval of some vets who felt we should be staying at home and looking after children and the sick. My favourite line from a letter to Vet Record asked: “But what use will they be anyway? They will know so little about so much.”  I wonder how that correspondent would feel today if he met an RVN, or discovered that we now have VNs on RCVS Council.

Vet nurses were then known as registered animal nursing auxiliaries, or RANAs. It wasn’t until a law change in the 1980s that we were permitted to use the title ‘Veterinary Nurse’.

Other notable changes are the Schedule 3 amendment permitting certain procedures to be delegated to nurses and, of course, the new Royal Charter when VNs became truly recognised as professionals in their own right. 

To become a VN now, you can study either an FE or HE route and we have increasing numbers of student veterinary nurses, up 20% over the past three years, with around 6,000 currently in training

"The future is very bright for veterinary nursing.  RCVS and VN Councils will need to ensure we are ready for that future, whatever it looks like. I am an RVN. I am proud and really pleased to be part of the essential veterinary team. I’m now a stayer."

Training practices are increasing, but not at the same pace. Yes, we need more, but the right ones that have the capacity and desire to train.

RVN numbers have increased by 22% over the past 3 years, and this looks set to increase further. We now have over 16,000 RVNs in total.

We have lots of Sarah wannabes. They want the yes moment. Making a difference. But, we need to retain them to make veterinary nursing a career for life, no matter what form that takes. Our animals deserve a veterinary nurse.

The future is very bright for veterinary nursing. RCVS and VN Councils will need to ensure we are ready for that future, whatever it looks like. I am an RVN. I am proud and really pleased to be part of the essential veterinary team. I’m now a stayer.