Week 6 and counting….

Last weekend I attended the BCVA Annual Congress at Hinckley, Leicestershire, including the Annual Dinner where the outgoing President, Declan O’Rourke, handed the reins over to Gareth Hateley.  As a former “cowboy”, I was excited at the prospect of catching up with former colleagues and attending some of the scientific content to see how things have moved on.  However, I was out of my depth after only the first few slides!  How things have changed; what ever happened to a calving at midnight, followed by a caesarian at 2.30am, then a “calf bed out” at 5am and a milk fever at 6am then a routine fertility visit on your way home for breakfast…it’s all about herd health now over breakfast on the farm, so none of the above should ever happen!

In the middle of the week we held a BEVA CPD Course (http://www.beva.org.uk/news-and-events/beva-courses) at Three Counties Equine Hospital, organised by my wife, Luise, entitled “Out of Hours Equine Emergencies for Mixed Practitioners – NO MORE WILL YOU DREAD THE 3 AM CALL….”.  The speakers were Luise, David Sinclair from Bell Equine Clinic, Neil Frame from Frame, Swift and Partners in Penrith and myself.  I’ve known Neil for several years having been co-examiners for CertEP and I think that he is the ultimate omni-competent vet that would be able to do bitch caesarian, a cow caesarian and anaesthetise a surgical colic all on the same night on-call – how many of the rest of us could claim that ability…with competence.  Preparation for and participation in the course was a lot of hard work but was also immensely rewarding and educational.  I think it’s really interesting and enlightening to hear how others deal with the different scenarios, which we’re all used to and how to cater and even improvise when faced with different client budgets and expectations.  I actually think that it would be a good course for Equine Only vets to attend.  I haven’t dared broach the subject with the organiser of running the course again next year; she’s still recovering from this year’s.

During the morning lectures I was able to squeeze in a radio interview with Lucy Bickerton from Farming Today (it’s the only time she could do!) to discuss one of the other issues, which I raised at the BBC RAC meeting described in last week’s blog, notably the ongoing problem of Anthelmintic Resistance.  I brought it up to raise horse-owner and the general public awareness of the issue and encourage more responsible use of anthelmintics, including, amongst other things, worm-egg counts, cross species grazing and muck-picking.  I think it’s due to be broadcast mid-week - http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/farming.   

Week 5 and counting….

I attended the British Veterinary Nursing Association (BVNA) Congress, at Telford over the w/e, at which there was an Equine Specific stream on Sunday.  What a fantastic venue and programme with 5 separate streams and a workshop running concurrently; in total there were approximately 1200 delegates over the 3 days and a commercial exhibition similar in size to our own.  The Congress Dinner on Saturday night was fancy dress (Heroes & Heroines), where I was The Lone Ranger…please God, don’t let there be any photos!

The ball finished at 1am and I was in the saddle doing a 100km Cyclo-sportive (The Tour of Worcester) with my son, Tom at eight the following morning – as you can imagine it was a long day…but it could always have been worse.  I could never give up alcohol; waking up every morning, thinking that’s the best I’m going to feel all day!

I attended a meeting at BBC Broadcasting House in Bristol on Tuesday as a member of the Rural Affairs Committee (RAC). The Committee is a group of approximately 20 people with very diverse roles and involvement in the rural community & economy including a Dairy Farmer, a Sheep Farmer, an Organic Farmer, CEO of the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, a Doctor of Bioscience Research, a Public Health Nutritionist, a Habitat Conservationist, a Rural Priest etc..  The Committee Chair is Christine Tacon CBE, the Groceries Code Adjudicator, http://www.christinetacon.com/.  (I wonder if I’ll ever be important enough to have my own website? - I bet Ben & Keith do.) 

Also present in the room for these meetings are up to 20 programme researchers, producers and editors of well-known BBC programmes such as Countryfile, The Food Programme, Farming Today and On Your Farm.  Occasionally some of the programme presenters also attend such as Tom Heap (http://www.tomheap.com/) from Countryfile who joined us earlier this year.  Each Committee member is allowed 5 – 8 minutes to give an overview of a handful of important topical issues, relevant to one’s sphere, which the individual considers to be newsworthy or may appear on the BBC’s radar over the next few weeks and months.  I introduced the issue of Non-Stun Slaughter at my first BBC RAC meeting 12 months ago and have lobbied about it at every meeting subsequently.  The extent of the practice of Non-Stun Slaughter first came to my attention about 3 years ago, at my first BVA Council meeting.  Although not relevant to horses, I feel passionately against what I consider to be an inhumane practice and as veterinary surgeons, I see our role is as guardians of the welfare of all animals.  As you will have noted the lobby against Non-Stun Slaughter has gathered considerable momentum over the last few months and the British Veterinary Association (BVA) have an e-petition, which has already achieved approximately 75,000 signatories calling for a ban.  If we can achieve 100,000 signatures it will automatically trigger a House of Commons debate on the issue.  So if you haven’t signed up and would like to, please can you do so via the link below – www.bit.ly/stunB4slaughter.

On Wednesday I drove up to South Milford, east of Leeds for the Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA) Animal Rescue Forum meeting, hosted by the West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service (FRS).  This is one of the 3 gatherings a year that the group holds to discuss new procedures, equipment and techniques.  

One point on the agenda is always, “BEVA Items”, where, amongst other things, I gave a resume of the recent BEVA Injury Survey - http://www.beva.org.uk/news-and-events/news/view/641. 

Inevitably, the high incidence of injury amongst horse-vets caused much discussion amongst the group, who as members of a large corporate (& spend a lot of time sitting on their corporate…) are astounded about the risks, which we expose ourselves to on a daily basis.  Furthermore, there was also criticism of some vets who attend animal rescues without appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) and who are reluctant to don the hard-hats, which the FRS provide on scene.  Furthermore, the question was asked, why we don’t use more PPE on a daily basis.  Would the use of hard hats and steel toe-caps reduce the number of injuries to horse vets; food for thought… 

This is one of the many questions that BEVA Policy Committee is due to discuss at our next meeting in a couple of weeks.

Week 4 and counting….

It’s exactly one month to the day that hms beva set-sail from Birmingham with me at the helm and much to David Mountford’s surprise we’re still on the same course.  However, we’ve already had to contend with a few squally showers and a brief force 8 storm in the shape of the Daily Mirror front-page as mentioned in my Blog a couple of weeks ago - http://politicshome.com/uk/article/104970/daily_mirror_saturday_20th_september_2014.html.

At the end of last week we had confirmation from the BHA Executive that after consideration of the minutes of the extraordinary meeting of the BHA Veterinary Committee, which I mentioned in my blog 3 weeks ago, and the preceding letter from the BHA Veterinary Committee, on which BEVA was a signatory, “…BHA’s Executive decided that the policy, as released on 26 June 2014, should proceed and that the effective date of implementation will remain unchanged.” http://www.britishhorseracing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Anabolic-Steroids-Policy-June-2014.pdf

Two visits to HQ this week; Monday and Friday – and no I wasn’t being called up in front of the head for bad behaviour.  Monday was with Monty (David Mountford), Dave Rendle (Congress Chair) and Anne Catchpole for our first face-to-face meeting about next year’s Congress in Liverpool http://www.beva.org.uk/congress.   Which seems a long way in advance but it was back in July that I invited Dave Rendle to be Congress Chair and Lesley Young to be his deputy.  Furthermore, some of the guardians have already been invited.  One of the many things I’m really excited about this Congress is the debates, Moral Maze style, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Maze) and true to form, there’s no lack of controversy with our chosen topics.

On Wednesday I posted an article on the BEVA Soapbox on our BlogSpot about Musculoskeletal Paraprofessionals http://britishequinevet.blogspot.co.uk/2014_10_01_archive.html.  Soapbox, which you may not know about, was launched in April with Mark Bowen’s first posting.  We introduced it to give members the opportunity to express their own views in the public domain; you could say to allow them to pontificate.  If you would like to post something please contact Lara Pocock in the office and she will assist you.  We'll draw the line at offensive or libellous pontifications but otherwise it's your soapbox and you can sound off as loudly and controversially as you wish!    

What a humbling day on Friday…I attended the EVJ Executive Board meeting at BEVA HQ in Fordham – I love that journey!  In attendance were Celia (Marr), Alistair Barr and James Wood and also present by phone link were Tim Mair and Debbie Archer – at least I was in good company with Monty!!  Not that the others are bad company of course but I was somewhat overawed by the amount of intellect in the room.  EVJ is the most highly ranked single species journal globally and is in the top 10 of all veterinary journals; the number of scientific papers submitted highlights this highly prestigious status.  60% of submitted papers are rejected but, whilst I thought that this sort of rate might be a deterrent to authors, it appears to reflect the desire of researchers to be published in our journal.  Obviously all submitted papers are very carefully scrutinised and therefore the editors' and peer reviewers' workloads are nearly twice what they might seem to be at first sight.  EVJ is clearly a a victim of its own success.

Till next week, steady as she goes… 

Week 3 and counting….

During my weekly Monday catch up with David Mountford, our CEO, I proclaimed that this was a quiet week from a BEVA perspective.  “Good,” he said, “enjoy it whilst it lasts…”.  And how right he was, since Monday my diary for the remainder of the year has up filled up exponentially.

Having said that it was a quiet week for BEVA, I was due to go to Cullompton on Wednesday to speak at the South West regional meeting.  Regrettably we had to cancel at the end of last week due to a lack of interest.  We did delay the decision for as long as possible but with only 3 working days to go there were only 6 delegates enrolled.  Although we accept that the regional meetings invariably run at a loss, it’s a little embarrassing when the number of speakers, organisers and sponsors present at the meeting exceeds the number of delegates.  In recent years the delegate numbers at most regional meetings has gradually been declining (the nurse regional meetings and the meetings in certain specific locations remain popular).  We’ve discussed this numerous times at Council meetings and keep changing the formula slightly to encourage enrolment.  We obviously still haven’t quite got it right and would love feedback as to how best to continue to run them, which we’re keen to do.  But it can only happen with your support!  If you have any ideas or suggestions, please contact the office (anne.catchpole@beva.org.uk).

However, the cancellation was a blessing in disguise for me otherwise on Wednesday I’d have had to get from Three Counties Equine Hospital to the Royal Dick in Edinburgh down to Cullompton and back home again.  The trip to Edinburgh was work related and was to partake in a Tranvenous Electrical Cardioversion (TVEC) of a horse with AF with John Keen, Karen Blissitt, Lesley Young and Gunther van Loon…I was only there to carry their bags!  As a group, we did our first one at Three Counties Equine Hospital back in June, which is still in NSR and we are hoping to offer this as a service nationwide from a number of locations.  Gunther, who uses ultrasound guidance for the electrode placement and has performed more TVECs than anyone else Europe-wide, was there to hold our hands.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2MR-I_hhWI  We’re hoping to be flying solo with our next one…maybe then I’ll be promoted from bag carrier!

The remainder of my BEVA week has been lots of telephone calls and email traffic.  The rest of the time I’ve been back at the coalface, which has been really refreshing.  Although I have managed to upset only one vendor by identifying a lameness at a PPE – plus ca change.  And this weekend really is back to the coalface with a weekend on 1^st call and Luise, my wife, on 2^nd!  At least the weather forecast is bad; there’s nothing more galling than a weekend on 1^st call when it’s “wall to wall” sunshine.  It’s early pm Saturday and we’ve already had routine calls, 4 emergencies and a surgical colic requiring 16’ of jejunum to be resected….bring it on.

Week 2 and counting….

What a start to last weekend with the splash on the front of the Mirror… “Shot in the head….” - http://politicshome.com/uk/article/104970/daily_mirror_saturday_20th_september_2014.html.

That certainly caused a stir and resulted in a lot of email traffic between BEVA, the Association of Racecourse Veterinary Surgeons (ARVS) and the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) throughout Saturday, culminating with me being interviewed by The Racing Post that afternoon.  The outcry from the racing fraternity and the majority of the general public against this crass sensationalism by The Mirror was over-whelming as well as re-assuring.

However, the situation was further complicated later in the week by a documentary on Racing UK on Thursday evening where the subject of the Use of Firearms on the Racecourse was discussed – http://www.racinguk.com/news/article/30480/racecourse-vet-calls-for-an-end-to-gun-euthanasia

On Tuesday I had a Veterinary Insurance Liaison Group meeting in The City at the Lloyds Marketing Association building, which involved another stint on a Boris bike!  This Group is involved predominantly with high value Bloodstock Insurance.  The meeting was very productive and highlighted the need for frequent dialogue with the insurance industry.  One of the outcomes is that we have been tasked with reviewing the ARM Guidelines (http://www.beva.org.uk/_uploads/documents/1ARMGuidelinesproof6May08.pdf) to make them more current and with particular reference to the Wobbler clause in that document, which is not consistent with the clause in the Lloyds documentation.

We also had a Joint Officers meeting with the BVNA scheduled for later that evening.  In the interim, I went to do some work in the Members Room at BVA HQ on Mansfield Street, to which as members, we all have access.  My visit coincided with Robin Hargreaves’ last afternoon and there was a small gathering to wish him well, which I obviously availed myself of – it would have been churlish not to!

The BVNA JO meeting was enlightening.  Their Association are particularly pleased with the new RCVS Charter, in which they have been instrumental, which recognises Registered Veterinary Nurses.  An aside to this, the issue of the title of “nurse” being used for unqualified practice nurses, which occurs frequently was raised.  Surely, it would be like calling vet students - “vets” - food for thought.

On Thursday I attended the BVA Members day in Manchester, which included an abbreviated Council meeting and the AGM.  I used this as an opportunity to feedback on their position document on the proliferation of vet schools and vet students, which will be available later this year.  The AGM marked the end of Robin Hargreaves’ tenure and the swearing in of his replacement John Blackwell.  I’m really sorry to see the back of Robin, although he will still be very involved as Senior Vice President.  He’s worked unbelievably hard for the BVA during his 12 months at the top and amongst many other things I think he’s done a huge amount to improve the BVA’s relationship with the species divisions.  John’s got a hard act to follow….

Week 1 and counting…

What a great Congress in Birmingham and a huge thank you to the organising committee, the student stewards and most importantly the BEVA office for their tireless work.

This week included a meeting at the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) headquarters in London.  A train to Euston followed by my first short ride on a “Boris Bike” into and out of central London - which may lose its appeal in driving rain as the year progresses!  This was an “extraordinary” meeting of the BHA Veterinary Committee (VC) to discuss their recently announced Policy on Anabolic Steroids, which is due to come into force on the 1^st January 2015 (http://www.britishhorseracing.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Anabolic-Steroids-Policy-June-2014.pdf).  All stakeholders were given the opportunity to have a “full & frank” discussion and air their concerns.

Then the following day, a meeting in Bristol with a group of veterinary physiotherapists to discuss educational standards.  This is part of BEVA’s long-term goal to establish a recognised group of Musculoskeletal Paraprofessionals (MP) who you can recommend to your clients with complete confidence in their professional standards of practice – but don’t hold your breath!  The intention is to include all interested disciplines of MP’s, which meet the yet to be determined appropriate professional standards.  This is work in progress, which will extend well beyond my tenure.

The week also included 3 nights on call and a partners meeting into the wee small hours.

“A week is a long time in politics”, or at least my first proper one has been; but probably not as long as Alex Salmond’s!  On that note, the result of the referendum means that we won’t have to consider re-naming BEVA & Keith C won’t need to launch SEVA.