15 Sept 2021
College is having active discussions with EU vet schools, is hoping to entice some clinicians back into practice and is planning a workforce summit to discuss current issues.
Paul Imrie
Job Title
RCVS chief executive Lizzie Lockett.
Non-practising vets could be approached to return to the front line to help with the profession’s staffing crisis.
The RCVS is studying information on its databases with a view to asking vets on the non-practising register to consider a return. It is also in touch with EU vet schools that are overproducing graduates about potential ways of supplying more vets, and is convening a workforce summit of all stakeholders this autumn.
RCVS chief executive Lizzie Lockett said the well-known staffing issues – due to a shortage of vets and VNs and exacerbated by pressures from the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit – had led to the college’s proaction to help ease problems.
Speaking at RCVS council, she said: “We know there has been a workforce issue in terms of a shortage of skilled veterinarians for some time, but I think the ongoing impact of COVID has exacerbated the problem really. There is burnout, illness, various restrictions, so teams are struggling.
“We are also looking at recruitment from overseas, so ongoing considerations around direct accreditation of veterinary schools that have an overproduction in the EU, although there are capacity issues across Europe and the rest of the world, too.”
Ms Lockett said a large pool of vets and VNs had left the profession or moved to the non-practising register, but that some may be able to return to help out with workforce issues for a short time.
She said: “At the moment we are gathering research on this – who is on the register, which categories, factors in terms of where they are moving to – to try to build a full picture of what is going on.
“We have a lot of info on the register, but we also need to supplement that with a more detailed quality of work as well.
“Then we are going to feed that data into a workforce model, so it will match up with what the market demands are, so we can get both sides of that. And then we want to bring the data, or at least as much as we have got at that point, to a workforce summit, possibly in November time [with a range of stakeholders].”
She said no date had yet been set for the summit, but it would be run under the college’s ViVet vet innovation banner.
She added: “At the moment, there are lots of conversations happening with people and us – so with the vet schools and us, with the employers and us, with representative bodies and us – but we all need to be there, and I think it is a really good example of how the college can hold a space for that conversation.”
