11 Feb 2025
SPVS Congress attendees told a new legislation could be put in place during the current Parliament.
Allister Webb
Job Title
Progress is being made towards new veterinary sector legislation because of a greater “political will” to finally address the issue, senior figures have claimed.
SPVS Congress delegates heard hopes a new law could be put in place during the current Parliament, amid suggestions that it might be a benefit of the current Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation.
The objective was among the topics examined in the latest Big 6 Live debate, entitled, “Is your practice fit for the workforce of the future?”
RCVS president Linda Belton acknowledged during the 31 January session that the issue had been discussed for a long time, as she argued a new law could bring practice teams together and enable veterinary nurses to expand their roles.
Dr Belton said: “The legislation, obviously, ultimately sits with Defra. It’s theirs and nobody else’s.
“I genuinely think yes, there is the political will currently. It can get derailed, of course it can. Look at everything that’s happened over the last five or six years.”
Asked whether that would be before the next general election, expected to be in either 2028 or 2029, Dr Belton indicated she thought that was possible.
However, her BVA counterpart, Elizabeth Mullineaux, sounded a more cautious tone.
She said: “We are engaging a bit more with Defra on this and there is definitely movement, but it isn’t going to happen quickly.”
But she also urged delegates not to “hang on” for a change in the law and take steps to expand nurses’ role within the existing provisions.
She said: “I think we’re all sat here thinking if we get a new [Veterinary Surgeons Act], our veterinary nurses will be able to do loads. But I see practices all the time that are not fully utilising what veterinary nurses are already able to do.”
One of Dr Belton’s predecessors as college president, the current BCVA president Kate Richards, also argued the department was now properly engaged with the issue, during a panel discussion dealing specifically with the CMA review held earlier in the Birmingham congress programme.
She said: “Maybe, a silver lining from the CMA is that Defra realises we do need a [Veterinary Surgeons Act].”
In response, a Defra spokesperson said the department was “actively engaged with representatives from across the veterinary profession regarding legislative reform and how legislation can best address” the current and future needs of both the sector and the wider public.
But, despite broader concerns within the sector about how it is being handled, the drive for legislative change does appear to have been given fresh impetus by its identification as a key concern when the CMA first signalled its intention to carry out a market investigation of companion animal services last March.
At that stage, it suggested the sector’s regulatory framework was “outdated and may not be fit for purpose”.
Meanwhile, XL Vets chief executive Andrew Curwen also urged caution in relation to recent calls, from inside and outside the professions, for more radical reform of how the sector and individual clinicians are regulated.
He highlighted current dissatisfaction with human health care regulators as he urged advocates of a General Veterinary Council, which would take disciplinary functions away from the RCVS, to “be careful what you wish for”.
