Tickets have now sold out for the National Equine Forum, 5 March 2020 but you can still enjoy the event. In addition to it being live streamed, remote audiences and attending delegates can have their say via an intuitive online app. NEF will be live streamed free of charge on the NEF website (http://www.nationalequineforum.com/) and the International channel Clip My Horse. You can register for the livestreaming here which will add the event to your calendar, provide you with a reminder and give you the opportunity to provide feedback. Viewers, as well as event delegates, can submit questions quickly and easily, in advance or on the day by using the audience participation tool Slido. From Monday 2nd March 2020 questions for some sessions can be submitted as well as up-voting questions. During the Forum, polls will be used during certain presentations. Information on how to submit your question can be found here: https://www.nationalequineforum.com/slido-nef20/ This year’s NEF programme covers a ...

A new five-year Strategic Plan for the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS), that revolves around four key ambitions and sets a blueprint for how the College will work on behalf of all its stakeholders, was approved by RCVS Council at its January 2020 meeting. The new 2020–2024 Strategic Plan has been in development since the end of 2018. To inform the development of this plan, over the last 12 months the RCVS undertook research amongst veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses (through the Surveys of the Professions), stakeholders and the public. Members of the professions and stakeholder organisations felt that the direction of travel was a positive one, with improvements noted by stakeholders in clarity of mission and purpose, transparency, openness and collaboration, and in the nature and speed of the College’s communications, since the last such research, in 2013. Members of the profession also rated the College highly on professionalism, international relationships, having p ...

A Recognition Order for the University of Surrey’s veterinary degree has been approved by Privy Council meaning that, from late next month, the degree will be formally accredited by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS). The Order was laid before Parliament for approval on Monday 27 January, having previously been approved by the Privy Council on Monday 20 January, and will come into force on 18 February 2020. From this date, students who graduate with the University of Surrey’s veterinary degree will automatically be able to join the Register of Veterinary Surgeons as Members of the RCVS and to practise veterinary medicine in the UK. The university’s Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine and Science (BVMSci Hons) degree will enter the College’s cyclical accreditation process and be subject to annual monitoring for quality assurance. Accreditation of the degree, had previously been agreed by RCVS Council at its October 2019 meeting. This followed a five-year process during which ...

Yesterday, 27 January 2020, marked the launch of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons’ (RCVS) new learning and development platform 1CPD.   1CPD has replaced the Professional Development Record (PDR) as the means of planning, recording and reflecting on veterinary professionals’ continuing professional development (CPD).    The launch of 1CPD accompanies and facilitates a number of other CPD policy changes, including the introduction of the new outcomes-focused CPD model which was introduced in 2020 and becomes mandatory from 2022. A key element of this new model is reflection, and 1CPD encourages veterinary professionals to reflect on the quality, relevance and impact of the CPD they undertake through the incorporation of the ‘plan, do, record, reflect’ cycle of CPD on the platform.   “Although the outcomes-focused element of these changes won’t become mandatory until January 2022, we recommend that you incorporate reflection in your cycle ...

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) Council has approved the direction of travel for a number of reforms aiming to update and improve the education and support of veterinary students and new graduates. A series of recommendations were put to RCVS Council at its meeting on Thursday 23 January 2020 which came out of the Graduate Outcomes Project, a wide-ranging consultation launched in 2018 to gather the views of the profession in four key areas: ·         Day One Competences – the skills and attributes required by veterinary graduates to work safely and independently upon entering practice; ·         The Professional Development Phase (PDP) – including an identified need for a more structured PDP programme for new graduates and what this could look like; ·         Extra-mural studies (EMS) – including how EMS placements should ...

On a personal note on December the 20th December, 2019 a large scale fire tore rapidly through the Adelaide Hills and took my sisters's farm at Woodside. ... the 7 ponies and horses were still on the farm and I am not sure how they are still alive. It was an incredibly distressing afternoon wondering what state they would be in and as soon as the fire had gone through we drove up. It was like Armageddon and not something I will forget in a hurry. My sister lost fencing hay sheds, chicken coops, garden, tack room, diesel generator, water electricity and she was one of the luck ones. She only got her 3 kids out of the house 2 hours before the fire hit. Something I will never forget.  Horses in general across Aus have been mostly either alive or dead / requiring euthanasia, with not much in between. They are clever things if you give them a change to escape the fire - in my sisters case a dam and open internal fencing with a lot of dirt on the ground.    Many people evacuated horses so th ...

The Privy Council has approved a rise to the current annual renewal fees charged by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) of £24 for those practising in the UK, £12 for overseas-practising members and £4 for non-practising members in order to continue to fund a number of ambitious projects and make sure the College is fit for the future. The approved fee rise will apply to the 2020-21 annual renewal fee for veterinary surgeons, including overseas-practising and non-practising veterinary surgeons and temporary registrants. These are due to be paid by 31 March 2020. Increases will also be applied for those registering on or after 1 April 2020, including the restoration fee for those applying to re-join the Register. In addition to being approved by Privy Council the fee rise had previously received approval from Lord Gardiner of Kimble, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Rural Affairs and Biosecurity at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, who recom ...

National pet charity Blue Cross is hoping 2020 will be a Happy New Year for 12 deserving horses in its care. The group came from a private home where circumstances beyond the owners’ control sadly meant that they could no longer give the horses the time and care they needed.  They took the brave step of asking the charity for help, to give them a safe future. Some of the horses were incredibly nervous on arrival at Blue Cross Rolleston’s rehoming centre, making catching, handling and leading them almost Impossible.  Some also had complex training needs. The charity’s horse team have been working hard to overcome these challenges in order to be able to give the horses important health checks, vaccinations and foot care.   “Most of the horses weren’t used to having their legs and feet handled regularly,” said Maria Kavanagh, horse rehoming manager at Blue Cross Rolleston. “Their hooves were overgrown and in desperate need of treatment from the farrier. ...

Pain has a significant impact on animal welfare and analgesia is considered to be imperative in helping to alleviate it. In the first of a series of guidelines produced for primary care vets the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) has summarised current recommendations on the safe use of analgesia in horses. The guidelines have been published in the January issue of the Equine Veterinary Journal (EVJ) and can be downloaded here: https://beva.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/evj.13198 Clinical guidelines are standard practice in human medicine and have been shown to influence clinical decision making in clinical settings. BEVA is following suit with this series of guidelines for clinical practice, aimed at equine primary care in an ambulatory setting. BEVA primary care clinical guidelines: Analgesia, produced by a panel combining clinicians and analgesia researchers, is the first to be published. It summarises current underpinning evidence and combines it with expert opinion on impacts of ou ...