UK chief vet warns ‘change’ needed in perception of OVs

The UK’s chief vet said action was needed to ensure vital OV and food safety roles were not considered “second class” by the profession.

Christine Middlemiss, who joined a delegation from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) seeking RCVS council’s help to plug potential gaps in the food supply chain, said the culture around OV work needed to change.

Council has agreed to allow a scheme for temporary registration of novice OVs (TRNOVs) graduating from certain European-accredited vet schools to continue.

The TRNOVs scheme allows vets with degrees from European Association of Establishments for Veterinary Education-accredited (EAEVE) schools to carry out specific meat hygiene tasks in England and Wales, even if they do not meet the RCVS’ usual English language standard.

Progress

Dr Middlemiss and officials from the FSA said they were making progress in ending the post-Brexit reliance on the TRNOVs scheme, but needed a three-year extension in the meantime.

After a lengthy debate – some of it in a closed session – the council instead opted to grant an 18-month extension.

In her comments to council ahead of that vote, Dr Middlemiss said more needed to be done by the whole profession to promote OV work as a career choice.

Addressing council at various stages, Dr Middlemiss said: “I think the culture is very much a profession thing, and we shouldn’t just be handing it to FSA to deal with, because veterinary public health – and in particular the OV side of it and the meat side of it – has never been something in my years of the profession we have considered in that same lens as some of the clinical work.

“It is not taught and given the same perspective at vet school, and even I, until I joined government, I’d say, it felt like being a second-class citizen in the profession.

“We need to change that – both in how we view the roles and the value-add as a profession – and then secondly in the resourcing and financing of it.”

Flexibility

She added: “Certainly, when I did it a long time ago, it was part in practice and part working as an OV in an abattoir, and that flexibility has a lot of attractions around it. So I think there is something for all of us [vets] in that space.”

Granted in June 2021 and extended for a further year in June 2022, the TRNOVs scheme meant vets with EAEVE-accredited degrees and level 5 English under the English Language Testing System could join the temporary register.

Full members of the RCVS must be level 7 and, under the scheme, all TRNOVs were required to reach that level in 12 months.

The FSA contingent wanted the scheme to continue for a further three years – this time with the language standard increased to level 6.

Moving forward, it said level 5 vet applicants could be recruited as “meat hygiene inspectors (vet track)”, meaning they could become full MRCVS if they hit level 7 English in two years.

Overseas

Historically, 90% of the country’s OVs graduated overseas, but many left the UK on its exit from the EU. The TRNOV scheme was designed as a short-term fix to plug shortages in vet cover at abattoirs.

In its report to the council, the FSA said 177 vets had joined the RCVS TRNOV scheme between June 2021 and June 2023, ensuring 100% delivery of official controls in abattoirs in England and Wales.

But council members were warned throughout that, as with the wider vet sector, retention was also an issue among OVs.

Modelling for the FSA by its service delivery partner (SDP) Eville and Jones suggests 40 to 50 fewer OVs would be available within three to six months of the scheme ending.

‘Sobering’

Junior Johnson, director for operations for the FSA, said: “That is based on a worse-case scenario of seven leavers per calendar month, which would mean we would need to prioritise which of the meat plants that we would deliver official controls within.

“Within five to six months, we would probably see 20% of establishments not having service delivery at all across those establishments and we would then need to think about how we would enact our contingency plans to enable that service delivery.”

Jane Clark, director of the FSA’s veterinary services, said the challenges facing the sector were “sobering”. She added: “Our OVs and meat hygiene inspectors are at work every day, in every abattoir, protecting animal health and welfare, food safety and underpinning international trade.

“This is absolutely vital work and we have a statutory obligation to make sure we can continue to deliver it.”

Capacity

Earlier, chief executive Emily Miles said EU exit and COVID-19 had impacted capacity across the profession, while councillors heard current FSA budget restraints were among reasons the TRNOV scheme was still needed.

But Will Wilkinson was among several councillors to speak with concerns about granting a full three-year scheme extension. During the meeting, he said: “Essentially, what has happened I think there has been a lot of sitting on hands with this scheme because we keep giving extensions.

“We need to have a clear end date on when this is going to stop, and I don’t think giving a three-year extension is compatible with that.”

RCVS council agreed the 18-month extension and asked the FSA to attempt completion of a planned SDP retender process in that time.