14 Jul 2025
Officials will consider whether more can be done to support veterinary professionals affected by discrimination following the publication of hard-hitting research on the issue.
Chris Simpson
Job Title
Navaratnam Partheeban, British Veterinary Ethnicity and Diversity Society co-founder.
Leaders of an RCVS project have pledged to examine whether more can be done to support vets impacted by discrimination following a new study on racism within the profession.
The commitment follows analysis funded by the college’s Mind Matters Initiative (MMI), which found BAME members of the sector had reported frequent racist incidents involving colleagues, clients and student peers.
MMI Lead Rapinder Newton said the college has implemented several inclusivity initiatives in recent years and highlighted the range of resources already provided through the RCVS Academy programme.
But she added: “It’s important that we don’t shy away from these important issues that have a huge impact on the lives and careers of those in our veterinary community.
“We will consider the research to understand whether there are further interventions that could be put in place to support those whose health and well-being has been impacted by discrimination, and we will continue to raise awareness of these topics.
“Veterinary careers are for everyone, and any form of discrimination is unacceptable.”
The study’s authors had called for unity within the sector to tackle the problem when the analysis was first published last month.
One of them, British Veterinary Ethnicity and Diversity Society (BVEDS) co-founder Navaratnam Partheeban, who recently urged the sector to “get our own house in order”, welcomed the work that has been done to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion and hopes it will encourage greater collaboration.
He said: “It’s great these schemes are happening – I feel like sometimes people want to do schemes in silos and it would be nice if we collaborated a bit more.
“BVEDS’ been leading on our own to begin with, now there’s other people doing stuff, it’s great to see that help.”
But he also warned that while there are more avenues to speak up and more support for those reporting racism than in the past, people with racist beliefs have also been emboldened.
He said: “With the way that the situation is in the world and right-wing politics, Brexit, false nationalism, I think that sometimes people [who] hold those negative racist values and feelings are more empowered to actually say them or use them more publicly than they were before.”
“There’s more empowerment on both sides. More empowered to speak up about [racism], more empowerment to actually use it.”
