I attended a joint BVA / RCVS meeting on Monday afternoon to do some brain- storming for the Vetfutures initiative. As a profession, where are we going to be in 2025?
The Project Manager, Sally Williams and colleague, Hannah Jordan provided a literature review, which highlighted six forces that are likely to shape the future for the veterinary profession:
1. Demographic Changes
a. Feminisation and the impact on part-time working – in the 2014 RCVS survey the number of vets working part-tine was 19% an increase from 11% in 2000. Most striking is the proportion of men undertaking part-time work, which has more than doubled since 2010.
b. Women tend to gravitate to SA, equine and mixed practice, whereas men lean towards to farm and equine
c. Socio-economic background of veterinary students: 24% of vets responding to the 2014 RCVS survey had been privately educated.
2. Economic Forces
a. Supply & Demand – where the US leads the UK often follows. An American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) survey indicates a surplus capacity of vets of between 11% and 14% between 2011 and 2025. Pet ownership in the UK remains strong (46% of households have pets) but this is not necessarily an indicator of the number of vet visits with owners utilising the Internet for advice!
3. An increasingly Competitive Market
a. Increasing number of corporates versus private sector practices
b. Internet sales of drugs
c. Human pharmacies moving into the pet marketplace.
4. Client Behaviour
a. Convenience culture – clients are “increasingly digitally sophisticated” and “time constrained”.
b. Farmers increasingly want proactive vets who are “part of the team”.
c. An RCVS client survey indicates that veterinary services need to change from a model of what vets are prepared to offer, to one that is driven by the needs and wants of existing and potential clients. The UK healthcare sector uses the end user as it’s starting point – it’s about “empowering patients”.
5. Food Supply and Global Imperatives
a. Issues such as climate change, bioterrorism, antimicrobial resistance, food supply & security and trans-boundary disease.
6. Mental Wellbeing
a. Research suggests that vets are no longer at greater risk of suicide compared with other professions.
b. An RCVS survey found that nearly 90% of vets found the job stressful but 80% reported job satisfaction.
c. 1 in 7 vets reaches burnout within the first 10 years post-graduation; 1 in 5 female vets meets the criteria for burnout with the first 5 years post-graduation.
Two days later I was back in London speaking at the AGM of the Royal College of Chiropractors where I spoke to it’s recently formed Animal Faculty on the very topical subject of the Vet / Therapist interface. Obviously this was from an equine perspective and was an opportunity to share with them some of the outcomes of the recent survey we undertook for the RMPR project. The return journey to Euston on a Boris bike coincided with a torrential downpour; it was going to happen one day!
On Thursday I attended a joint meeting of the Veterinary Policy Group (VPG) and Ethics and Welfare Group (EWG) of the BVA at Mansfield Street on the contentious issue of the “badger cull”. I attended at the specific request of the BVA President, John Blackwell but I’m not sure that it’s right that we (BEVA) should have an official view; that’s surely the job of the specialist divisions. If you’d like to voice your concerns about the cull, I’d encourage you to contact the BVA directly.
Following this I caught a late flight to Stockholm to attend the second Nordic Equine Veterinary Conference, arriving at 0100hrs. Between Stockholm Arlanda Airport and the hotel, I managed to lose my mobile…..
Tuesday, 10 February 2015
Monday, 2 February 2015
Week 19 and counting……
I just spent a weekend on call, which I
swapped with one of my partners, Mark Georgetti, whilst he went on SkiPD,
organised by the Mayes’s and Henry Tremaine.
Regrettably, we haven’t been for a few years because it’s always during
term time. Although it’s probably not
fair to blame it on the children this year…. I do have quite a lot on my plate
already!
At the end of the week I participated on a
discussion panel at the joint Veterinary Practice Management Association and
Society of Practicing Veterinary Surgeons (VPMA / SPVS) Congress, which was
held at the Celtic Manor, Newport. It’s
the second consecutive year that it’s been held there because of the sheer size
of venue needed to accommodate delegate numbers. It was also really convenient for me being
only an hour away from home.
The Keynote speaker for the Congress was
Monty Hall, http://www.montyhalls.co.uk/about-monty,
who was captivating for the full hour or so.
As some of you may know he’s an ex-Royal Marine Officer, although by his
own admission he’s never seen active service.
He gave a really entertaining and sometimes self-deprecating talk about
constantly setting new challenges for yourself, getting out of your comfort
zone and not letting age be a limiting factor; which is quite appropriate when
you’re my age. He described how he’d
spent several weeks filming with Discovery channel for the programme, “Lost
Worlds” where he’d had to climb (accompanied) a 1000 feet vertical face to film
some wildlife and he’s petrified of heights; by my standards that’s definitely
out of your comfort zone.
This year the Congress organisers had
included an Equine Specific Business Stream, which attracted 50 – 60 delegates
and generated lots of lively discussion.
Julian Samuelson of Bell Equine deftly
chaired the panel discussion with my fellow contributors Chris Pearce and Wendy
Furness, neither of whom needs any introduction. The title of the panel was, “Equine Practice
is Different…” which may be true but different to what; I have no experience of
running any other type of practice…
But it seems that a lot of concerns are
common to all of us:
-
Feminisation, which is currently
less pronounced in equine practice.
Statistics from the RCVS show that of the approximately 20,000
registered practicing veterinary surgeons, 57% are female and 43% are
male. The BSAVA shared their membership
statistics with me, which are approximately 63% female to 37% male (the lions
share of which are less than 45 years old – are the older ones retired
already?!), which compares with the gender split of BEVA’s ordinary members
which is 45% female to 55% male.
-
Increasing graduate numbers
both UK and foreign; however, there were comments about the dearth of
experienced (approximately 3 year qualified) vets in the marketplace.
-
Corporatisation – to date there
are only a handful of corporate-run Equine Practices and it’s difficult to
predict if this is going to change.
-
Succession – have you got a
plan; is your practice affordable / saleable?
-
Work / Life balance - have we
got it right? Have your chance to join
the debate “Does Equine Practice need to be more compatible with Family Life?” at
BEVA Congress in September.
Talking of BEVA Congress, I am delighted
with this year’s logo (see below), for which I was keen to have a racing theme
and that image is iconic for the Grand National (Aintree) as the only start
where you see the runners from behind.
The personal touch, which Joss has allowed me to include, is the colours
of some of the horses which have been under the care of my practice, namely Mon
Mome, Monbeg Dude, State of Play, Cappa Bleu and Alvarado all of which have run
in the Grand National. Those racing
enthusiasts amongst you will recall that Mon Mome won in 2009 starting at odds
of 100-1.
I’m most grateful to both Helen Sanderson
(the outgoing VPMA chair) and Colin Thompson (the outgoing SPVS chair) for
inviting me to participate in the VPMA / SPVS Congress. It was also very kind of them to invite Luise
and I to the banquet on the Friday evening, which was “black tie” with a hint
of Scottish. I assume that the reason
for this was that it was just 2 days prior to Burns Night and also because of
Colin’s ancestry; Colin didn’t disappoint with his word-perfect address to the
haggis.
Tuesday, 27 January 2015
Week 18 and counting.....
On Tuesday David Mountford (CEO) and I went
to DEFRA and met up with Richard Drummond and Siobhan Taylor to discuss the
results of the Review of the Minor Procedures Regime (RMPR) project surveys
mentioned in last week’s blog. BEVA have undertaken 2 separate surveys as
part of the evidence gathering for the review, one on the subject of Musculoskeletal
Therapies, including small animals (Survey 1) and the other one about Equine
Dental Care (Survey 2). Survey 1 was targeted
at
musculoskeletal therapy associations (12 responses), individual musculoskeletal
therapists (623 responses) and horse owners (5,796 responses). Survey 2 was targeted at the equine dental
associations (1 response), individual equine dental care providers (378
responses) and horse owners (5,796 responses).
Both surveys make for interesting reading:
Survey 1
-
25% of horse-owners would not contact a vet if they
thought that their horse had a musculoskeletal problem, nearly 50% might
contact a physiotherapist and just over 40% might contact a chiropractor.
-
Some therapists report vets being unwilling to
engage/liaise
-
Better regulation is desired
-
Minimum educational standards of a Degree or Masters
are supported by the majority of therapists
-
Current regulations are considered to be impractical
and ill-defined and there is poor enforcement
-
There are currently no minimum standards /
qualifications for therapists
-
Therapists consider that there is veterinary
indifference and ignorance.
-
Estimated number of therapists offering
musculoskeletal therapy to horses in the UK – 1120.
Survey 2
-
Vets are often not the owner’s first choice for equine
dental care
-
Word of mouth/reputation is the primary differentiator
used by owners
-
Qualifications are important to owners but are not
checked
-
Association membership is important to owners but is
not checked
-
The majority of qualified EDTs comply with “accepted
practice”.
-
BAEDT members appear to be slightly more compliant
than others
-
¾ of unqualified EDTs do not comply with “accepted practice” or
the VSA
Tuesday, 20 January 2015
Week 17 and counting…..
Yes, I know the last blog was my 14th
but I did have 2 weeks off from BEVA things over the Xmas and New Year period
and therefore no blog was forthcoming! 2
weeks off, except of course for the continuous influx into my Inbox; although
it was reduced to about 30 a day. But
sadly not 2 weeks off from the practice and the Xmas & New Year Rota, which
included the first Point-to-Point fixture in the area for the 2014/2015 season.
New Year and new resolutions: to answer
emails by return and not just let them sit in my Inbox, whilst I ponder them; to
only read texts, when I’m in a position to respond to them rather than read
them whilst I’m driving with the intention of responding when I’m stationary
and then I invariably forget.
The first edition of the year of the Horse
and Hound included an article on the hopes of a number of vets, including
myself. I’m surprised that there hasn’t
been more fallout from my concerns about some rider’s weight compromising their
horse’s welfare.
It was straight back into it at the start
of the week with a trip down to the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) headquarters
in London on Tuesday for a meeting of the Veterinary Committee. The implementation of their Anabolic Steroid
Policy has been delayed until March 2015 because of the difficulty in defining
who is deemed to be the “responsible person” either prior to a horse entering
training or during those periods of time when the horse is “out of
training”. No further information was
available at the time of the meeting but it is hoped that these loose ends will
be tied up by February after further consultation with the National Trainers
Federation (NTF) and the Racehorse Owners Association (ROA) …watch this space.
I tabled a paper about equine dental
procedures being performed on BHA licensed premises. This is part of our ongoing campaign to
inform all horse owners / trainers / carers about the legislation surrounding
“the horse’s mouth”. One of the things,
which has become apparent to us over the last few months both from the BEVA
e-Survey of our members and the survey, which we undertook for the Review of
the Minor Procedures Regime (RMPR) board on Equine Dental Care is the
surprising amount of ignorance about and understanding of the subject. The RMPR survey included dental care
providers, including vets, and horse-owners.
BEVA has been trying to promote the
regulation of “horse dentists and dentistry” for years in order to protect
animal welfare. Achieving this goal is
currently being hampered by the fact that anything other than Category 1 dental procedures are considered to be acts
of veterinary surgery. However, we are still
condoning / supporting the practice of Category 2 procedures by “suitably
qualified” non-vets. This is an anomaly and
until there is an exemption order in place, which we are working on with DEFRA,
it will remain theoretically illegal for non-vets, suitably qualified or not,
to perform Category 2 procedures.
However, in the meantime, I think that we should recommend that only
“suitably qualified” dental technicians should be performing any (Category 1 or
Category 2) procedure in a horse’s mouth.
I think we’ve all seen the results of the damage that a non-qualified
individual can do using a set of rasps, albeit legally - whose idea was it for
unqualified people to be allowed to rasp sharp enamel points anyway?
At the meeting I requested that the BHA
take a lead on this and recommend that only suitably qualified EDT’s or vets be
undertaking any form of equine dentistry on BHA licensed premises. Obviously it will be difficult to implement
this with immediate effect but I suggested that those individuals working on
BHA premises who are not qualified are allowed a period of maybe a couple of
years to gain suitable qualifications in order to retain the work.
I have a meeting with DEFRA next week to
discuss the RMPR survey where I hope we can progress the subject of equine
dentistry further.
Tuesday, 6 January 2015
Week 14 and counting……
Fortunately the weekend on call, although
reasonably busy, didn’t result in me losing too much sleep and so I was able to
shake off the jetlag quite promptly.
The main BEVA item this week was the
Council Review Meeting, http://www.beva.org.uk/aboutus/MeetTeam/Council,
which was held at Trinity Hall in Cambridge.
As a Liverpool graduate I am unfamiliar with the City of Cambridge and
its collegiate system. My only visit to
Cambridge as an undergraduate was on a rugby tour and all that I can recall is
the pub, the kebab house, the rugby pitches and the fact that we won…. which
was a surprise as the players who appeared on the pitch on the Saturday
afternoon were definitely not the ones we were drinking with the previous night;
I think we’d been entertained on the Friday evening by the 1st XV
“drinking team”.
However, what a remarkable scholastic city,
steeped in history and tradition.
Although not all Council members shared my enthusiasm – “There’s nothing
makes me want to vote socialist more than f…..g Cambridge,…” exclaimed in the
best Lancastrian accent – guess who?
We welcomed 4 new members onto Council at
the meeting, namely Gayle Hallowell, Ben Sturgeon, Hannah Yeates and Jon
Pycock, who’s doing his second stint on Council – his first one being about 10
years ago. It was really encouraging in advance
of Congress in September that we had sufficient people who applied to join
Council that an election was required – did they all think, “If Harrison can do
it then anybody can”. For those of you
who weren’t successful this time or others of you considering Council, I
strongly encourage you to apply next year – you really will get a lot out of
it. I urge more practitioners to apply,
particularly female ones - after all that’s the vast majority of members, which
the Association represents. If you think
Council’s full of “old, male, tweedy farts” (see Blog 7), put your money where
your mouth is:
Topics discussed included:
The
Association’s Operational and Financial Reports
-
The total membership stands at
2678, only a fraction up on last year.
-
Membership subscriptions can
now be paid by monthly direct debit.
-
There is a NEW concessionary
rate for those earning < £15K or on parental leave or studying full time for
a full time veterinary related qualification.
-
The Scientific Programme for
the 2015 Congress is almost completed.
-
The BEVA Database and Website are
being re-built
-
The BEVA offices at Fordham are
undergoing some renovation works in 2015.
The
Role of The BVA
-
The BVA have asked for feedback
from the divisions on its structure and governance.
Do
we want to be Doctors!
-
I’d rather “vet” something than
“doctor” it!
Following the meeting, we had our Christmas
dinner, again at Trinity Hall, which included all Council Members and partners
and the BEVA Office Staff and all had a late, great night.
The following day I attended the Winter
Clinical Workshop at Duxford Airspace, Cambridgeshire, http://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-duxford,
what an inspired choice of venue. The
meeting covered predominantly “Regenerative Medicine” and its use in
orthopaedics – New Treatments for Lame Horses – Do They Work? It was a really informative day and was fully subscribed with over 75 attendees.
Over Xmas – the BEVA offices closed down
although I’m lead to believe that DM is “beavering” away behind the
scenes!
However, no such luxuries at TCEH –
although this year Luise and I are both off over Xmas as we both worked Xmas Day
and Boxing Day last year. We were both
out till early evening on Christmas day and the kids were Home Alone. They said it was the best Christmas they’d
ever had – they watched the television all
day.
Compliments of the season to you all and
I’ll catch up in the New Year.
AH
Week 13 and counting……
A quarter of the way through my year
already – “Is that all?” I hear David Mountford cry.
Our trip to Toronto airport did involve a
stint on the wrong side of the road as I left a “gas station”, which did cause
much anxiety for the other driver and my passenger. So onto Salt Lake City (SLC) via Chicago for
the 60th AAEP Convention – “Howdy!”.
I thought that I wasn’t very well travelled but approximately 70% of Americans
don’t have a passport. But why would you
need to in just a huge and diverse country?
Our hosts could not have made us feel more
welcome. On the Saturday night we were
entertained at the President’s reception and met up with the outgoing AAEP
President, Jeff Blea DVM and his wife, Annie also DVM. His is an interesting career; his career as a
flat jockey of a few years was curtailed after he was involved in a serious
riding accident where he was “slammed” into the running rail, which left him
with a totally paralysed left arm. After
this he re-trained as a vet and is a now a practitioner who does racetrack work
- with effectively only one arm. I am
truly in awe of people like Jeff who conquer serious disabilities to succeed –
respect.
The weather was unseasonably warm with
clear blue skies and temperatures above freezing. The Convention format is very similar to BEVA
Congress with an opening ceremony and plenary lecture, which most delegates
attend, followed by multiple streams running concurrently, but as you would
imagine it was a lot bigger. Also I’ve
never seen so many Stetsons or cowboy boots in one lecture theatre.
The plenary lecture was delivered by Marvin
Beeman DVM, an 82 year old practitioner who still works a 4½ day week in the mid-west and hunts twice a week during the
season. He gave a very thought provoking
and inspiring insight into his work ethic both as a professional and a
businessman. He invited us to join him
and his family at the Convention dinner on the Tuesday night - what an
inspiration and he fully deserves to be wearing the crown!
There were a handful of UK delegates
including Nenad Zilic , from Barn Equine, Sue Dyson, Lynn Hillyer, Tim Mair
representing Equine Veterinary Education (EVE), Roger Smith, Chris House &
Jane Jackson, Rob van Pelt and our very own David Mountford. Even Gavin from BCF made an appearance in the
trade-stand area (which as previously mentioned was a lot bigger) and managed
to lure me into buying one of their new DR systems – it’s ok the deal wasn’t
clinched in the bar and my partners do know.
There were several opportunities to
collaborate with the AAEP – for example, there was an evening meeting of their
Internship Awareness Program (sic). This
involved approximately 60 equine clinics, usually called hospitals, advertising
their wares in an informal setting to undergraduates and recent graduates. Their programme is far more advanced than
BEVA’s Internship Awareness Proogramme but gave us some good ideas as how to
progress ours. David and I also had an
informal meeting with a company who are keen for BEVA to collaborate in an
Equine Veterinary Conference in China in the latter part of 2015.
SLC is another 2 hours behind Toronto
causing even more disruption to my sleep patterns. Every morning I was wide-awake at 3 am
regardless of the time I went to bed.
Understandably, I vacated the room and was in the “lobby” by 3.15am
doing emails etc.. It’s not unusual for
me to be in the hotel reception at 3.15 am at BEVA Congress but not usually doing
emails! The return journey coincided
with my body clock having finally adapted to the SLC time zone. It was an overnight flight arriving in
Heathrow at 11am and then straight back to work and into a weekend on call….
Monday, 15 December 2014
Week 12 and counting….
I had a late night on Sunday trying to
submit my application to the RCVS for Advanced Practitioner Status, http://www.rcvs.org.uk/education/advanced-practitioner-status/,
before the closing date of, err…Sunday night. Nothing like a deadline to focus the mind –
bit like exams really! I struggled with
the technology but just dipped in under the bar.
I believe I wasn’t the only one with the middle name, “Justin”: in the
final week leading up to the deadline the number of applicants rose from about
250 to 700, (approximately 40% of which were equine) - good to hear I was in
good company.
The rest of the week until Wednesday night was
in the practice culminating in our annual dinner for our referring vets at The
Corse Lawn Hotel http://corselawn.com/. The evening ended sampling malt whisky at 2am
with our houseguest, Henry Tremaine.
This was followed by a 7am departure to catch a flight to the 60th
AAEP Convention in Salt Lake City http://www.aaep.org/info/annual-convention-318.”I
was buckin’ and squealin’” as Liam Kearns, one of my partners would say. We dropped Henry back at the hotel to collect
his car and wended our way to Heathrow, finding an “early starter” en route.
On
our way to Salt Lake City we stopped off at Toronto to spend a couple of nights
with Luise’s uncle, University Professor-Emeritus Geoffrey Sumner-Smith DVSc
(Liv), MSc, BVSc FRCVS – that number of letters after a name was never going to
be from my side of the family! Geoff
qualified from Liverpool in 1951 and after spending a few years in large animal
practice in Malpas, Cheshire, followed by some Small Animal practice in
Bristol, moved to Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) at the University of Guelph
in 1967 for a 2 year post – and in his words, “…I’ve been here ever
since”. Geoff was one of the pioneers of
internal fixation (AOVET) in small animals and has published widely on the
subject of small animal orthopaedics.
Obviously we had to visit the OVC, where Luise also spent 12 months as
an intern from 1987 to 1988.
Another early start on Saturday, which
didn’t matter, jetlag had already kicked in, for our flight to Salt Lake City
via Chicago. I’m an early riser most
days but 3am is even a shock to my system!
So, to the US to experience The Great
American Dream….
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