Royal College Day 2024: Address from RCVS CEO Lizzie Lockett

Good morning everyone and a very warm welcome to our Royal College Day. It’s my job to give you a recap of the year in about seven minutes…. Which is not going to be an easy task. It’s been a busy one!

Often when I travel to overseas veterinary events I find people are watching and waiting to see what happens in the UK. We are often seen as trail-blazers – sometimes in a way that our counterparts find inspirational and sometimes, to be frank, troublesome!

But just as the UK veterinary profession prides itself on supporting some of the best animal health and welfare standards in the world, and being a hub for the advancement of veterinary excellence, so, as your regulator and Royal College, we are prepared to push the boundaries to ensure we are leading the charge when it comes to progressive change that meets the needs of society, animal owners and keepers and the veterinary professions.

In that vein, since our last AGM we have launched new guidance on Under Care, that has allowed, in some circumstances, prescription of veterinary-only medicines without a hands-on clinical examination – this was certainly one of the situations that the global veterinary profession had been watching carefully.

Within those changes we did continue to say that an examination was required in certain situations – controlled drugs, suspected notifiable diseases and for the prescription of antimicrobials including ecto- and endo-parasiticides. Antibiotic resistance is now a topic of much discussion – and in fact featured heavily at our Fellowship Day last year. But our decision ref ecto and endos, which was about reducing the potential for resistance as well as recognising the potential environmental impact, was not met with universal understanding. When I first started my career in animal health marketing back in the early 1990s, we promoted in-feed antibiotics. This now seems crazy. What might we think about the blanket prescription of endos and ectos in ten years’ time?

We have also started work on our new Veterinary Clinical Career Pathways project, looking at how we can enhance, clarify and make more accessible clinical progression, with a particular emphasis on GPs. At last month’s Federation of Veterinarians of Europe General Assembly a delegate asked why the profession wasn’t thinking about a specialism in general practice, and I was pleased to say that we were.

Thanks to those who have attended our first stakeholder meetings, your support and also your challenges are both very welcome.

Thanks also to those who have attended our VN Vision workshops, looking to shape the future of a profession that has so much to offer the veterinary team.

Another area where we know that our progress is being keenly watched is around the regulation of the veterinary use of AI – we held a really stimulating roundtable on that about a six weeks ago and are report is due shortly.

We are also about to publish a ground-breaking piece of research into the experiences of those members of the veterinary team who have chronic illness or disability, which we hope will help shape and change the types of support that can be made available, to make the profession ever more inclusive and accessible. This supports our workforce action plan, covering all three Rs of recruitment, retention and return. On a similar theme we were also delighted last year to have a record number of overseas-qualified vets join our Register on completion of our Statutory Membership Exam, including our first refugee supported to do so.

Earlier I said that we aimed to ‘meet the needs of society, animal owners and keepers and the veterinary professions.’ It rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? But the reality of meeting the needs of those disparate groups? Not easy. In fact some might say impossible.

Some of you will have encountered the group of animal owners protesting outside our AGM this morning – they feel we should be doing more to address veterinary negligence – although to do so would be outside our legal powers and unusual for a professional regulator. Many of them have lost animals in sad circumstances and we are sorry that events have led them to our door this morning.

And we are currently consulting on change to our governance so that our regulatory role better meets the public interest. If you venture into any of the veterinary forums – and take snacks, you might be there a while – you will no doubt see many members of the profession who feel we are going too far, too fast. Or not far enough, and too slowly…

And of course the Competition and Markets Authority is now looking at veterinary service delivery from the perspective of the consumer market – which may or may not be aligned with what’s best for animal health and welfare.

Just some of the many audiences that the College needs to keep in mind. It’s a balancing act that, to quote my Dad ‘sounds like walking a tightrope with clogs on’. Yup. That.

But there are always opportunities within challenge, and it’s important we hear our critics, wherever they come from. 

There are always things we can do better, changes to be made, and rules to be reinforced, updated or scrapped.

One of the prongs of the CMA investigation is the contention that the regulatory framework is preventing the veterinary market from functioning as well as it could. We agree.

“A new Veterinary Surgeons Act!”

It’s a clarion call that we, alongside our colleagues in BVA and other veterinary associations, have been making for some time. Perhaps the CMA inquiry will be the burning platform that catalyses change. At last.

And of course we have a new government this morning, with, hopefully, new energy, resource and impetus to help us make the change we so desperately need on behalf of the nation’s animals and those who provide veterinary care for them.

We know that the CMA inquiry, no matter how welcome such constructive scrutiny may be, is putting pressure on members of the veterinary team, and we continue to be supportive via initiatives like Mind Matters Initiative and our online learning Academy. Some say that that supporting the professions is not appropriate for a regulator. To that I would say ‘it’s entirely appropriate’. It’s in the public interest to have veterinary professionals who can succeed, and a veterinary profession – or professions – that are sustainable and fit for purpose.

Earlier in the year were delighted that His Majesty King Charles III agreed to be our patron – it is a great honour. We are an historic organisation, founded by a Royal Charter back in 1844, and in all of our willingness to adapt and change to stay relevant, we don’t forget our history. How we find appropriate space for this in our new building is a regular topic of discussion.

In fact the question I seem to get asked more than any other is, when will you be moving into your new building? I am hoping that this level of interest means many more of you will actually come and visit us in the new building when we do get there – it is your College, after all!

We hope to be in our new building by the end of January next year, although, as those of you who have carried out building projects will know, things – ironically perhaps – are never quite as ‘set in stone’ as you might hope. Our new building will be – to quote our President – ‘fabulous,’ though. It’s an old Victorian warehouse on Hardwick Street in London, and shares something in common with Hardwick Hall, an Elizabethan house you may be familiar with just off the M1: ‘Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall’, so the saying goes.

In those days, lots of windows were a sign of status. In our times, such an abundance of natural light remains sought-after – although finding wall space for all of the portraits of illustrious former Council members may be a challenge. We look forward very much to welcoming you when the time comes.

In addition to taking the keys of our new home, the next twelve months will see the development of a new strategy, ongoing work on our new customer relationship management system, the launch of our EMS database, work on a new website and, no doubt, much more from the CMA.

Finally, some thank yous. As ever, a massive thank you to the College team. Every year brings us new and unexpected challenges – despite our best efforts at crystal ball-gazing. The staff team remain talented, compassionate, resourceful and graceful under pressure – I have seen that very much at first hand just recently with the mountain of work required by the CMA inquiry. Heartfelt thanks from me to you.

We are actually losing today one of our most respected and impactful members of the team. Eleanor Ferguson, our Registrar and Director of Legal Services, is marking her 20th anniversary by exiting stage left (literally!). But more of that this afternoon, when we will dedicate paeans to her most excellent qualities!

Thank you also to Council for their leadership, and to our Officer team, especially President Sue Paterson. I have witnessed this year the consummate professionalism and hard work of one of the most dedicated, well researched, collaborative, engaging and supportive presidents that it has been my privilege to experience.

Please note: the live delivery of the speech may have differed slightly from the text above.