Royal College Day 2024: Address from VN Council Chair, Belinda Andrews-Jones RVN

I am now one year into being Chair of VN Council and it has been such an insightful year in terms of understanding what members of this profession know and think about the RCVS, and what they want our priorities to be as their regulator.

In my various conversations with veterinary nurses of all different levels of experience, as well as student veterinary nurses and their educators, one issue that comes up more than any other is the really strong desire out there for legislative reform.

With a potential fresh administration entering Downing Street and the Houses of Parliament, this really is the perfect time to be banging the legislative reform drum – to ensure our voice can be heard.

While many of these discussions with veterinary nurses revolve around the need to finally get legal protection for the title ‘veterinary nurse’, the legislative reform proposals are much wider than this.

Of course, from a professional pride point of view, ensuring that only those of us who have done the relevant education and training, do our annual CPD and are on a publicly available Register of Veterinary Nurses can actually be called veterinary nurses is very important.

But the legislative reform proposals will also offer not only some very specific examples of an expanded role for veterinary nurses – for example, we are suggesting a greater role for VNs in anaesthesia, and regaining the ability to carry out cat castrations – but broad principles-based changes that could lead to an enhanced VN profession of the future.

For example, via the decoupling of delegating tasks to a veterinary nurse from employment which means VNs have the choice to work ‘with’ rather than just ‘for’ a veterinary practice, meaning our skills and potential can be better used in the cause of animal health and welfare.

And of course, some of the legislative changes we are proposing that go beyond the scope of veterinary nurse – like mandatory practice regulation and regulation of the wider vet-led team – would also be of benefit for veterinary nurses. Like an economy, when it comes to professional standards, a rising tide lifts all boats.

I mentioned banging the drum for legislative reform earlier, and I want to make it clear, I don’t want to be on my own doing that, I want as many of my peers in the veterinary nursing profession to be doing the same so we’re making such a racket that we can’t be ignored. There are going to be lots of new MPs in constituencies up and down the country and now is the perfect time to get this issue in their line of sight.

Finally, as a prerequisite of legislative reform, we have also made proposals on the need to change our governance structures to make our arrangements better aligned with other, similar regulators, and to ensure that it best supports our mission to enhance animal health and welfare. The most significant issue has been the proposal to stop holding elections for RCVS and VN Councils, and to move to a fully-appointed system.

There have been some concerns expressed about this proposal, but I just wanted to say that as an appointed member of VN Council, I can vouch for how robust and independent the application and recruitment system was.

I was not involved in veterinary politics before joining VN Council and so it wasn’t a ‘tap on the shoulder’ that got me here, but an effective, skills-based process which considers on merit your suitability for the role.

Our consultation on these proposals will be open until 22 July, so if you haven’t yet had chance to send us your views, please do. We would really value hearing from you.

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