RCVS: prioritise livestock production, meat hygiene over NHS

The RCVS is specifically urging veterinary professionals to devote their skills to keeping the food chain operational during lockdown before volunteering their services to human medicine.

Thousands of vets, VNs and students have signed up to work on NHS wards, and the college’s response has been to issue new guidance.

Admire

RCVS registrar Eleanor Ferguson said: “While all of us recognise and admire the desire of veterinary professionals to play a front-line clinical role in the fight against coronavirus, it must be remembered that there are certain legal restrictions on the assistance they can lawfully provide and how they should represent themselves to patients.

“We recognise that the Government’s current priority is in re-recruiting retired and non-practising medical health professionals, and granting provisional registration to final-year medical students, and that the General Medical Council is making significant advances in these areas.

“To this end, we would encourage veterinary professionals to first consider what assistance they might be able to provide to the livestock production, meat hygiene and food import/export industries, before volunteering to assist directly with local NHS trusts.”