29 Oct 2026
Panellists at BCVA Congress said securing a new VSA would be the quickest way of enhancing the role of farm vet techs and other allied professionals.
Chris Simpson
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Image © Production Perig / Adobe Stock
Securing legislative reform of the veterinary sector will be the quickest way to enable farm veterinary technicians to do more within vet teams, BCVA Congress was told.
The subject of a new Veterinary Surgeons’ Act [VSA] dominated a panel discussion on the evolving role of farm vet techs.
British and Irish Veterinary Technician Association chair Natalie Parker said her profession’s work has been driven by a “massive deficit in the farm workforce”.
She continued: “As vet techs, we wanted to be seen to be professional. We went to the RCVS. We wanted to work together.”
Pointing to the role techs play in New Zealand and noting Kenya rewrote its own VSA in 2011, she added: “It’s silly we’re so far behind.”
Asked why approved blood samplers can only take samples when performing government work, Defra’s deputy CVO Ele Brown said that was “exactly the sort of issue” reform would resolve and “is absolutely high on my wish list and something that I would want to see under a new [VSA].”
On enabling wider vet-led teams, Miss Brown said: “We could make individual acts or secondary legislation around different things that different professions could do, but we’ve done that as far as we can.
“We need that overarching reform to give us the ability in the future to more easily adapt to the changing needs of both the profession and the society we work for.”
RCVS junior vice-president David Barrett added the college “went as hard as it could under Schedule 3” but “we desperately need a new act”.
In response, Goat Veterinary Society senior vice-president Nick Perkins argued from the floor: “A lot of change is needed, and we know that the new [VSA] is intended to accommodate that, but some of it is needed much quicker.”
The Veterinary Defence Society’s Martin Hosegood accused the college of wanting to stop rather than facilitate such change in the past and argued it “could take a pragmatic approach to this” by changing the RCVS code of conduct now.
Prof Barrett said: “The college is very much about trying to promote the vet-led team and bring allied professions on board.”
He added: “There’s a willingness to look at the code of conduct at some point.
“It’s kept under regular review, but I think it’s difficult for them to just dip in and out and make minor changes here and there. We may be in a situation now where something else may not be quicker than a new VSA.”
Fellow panellist Duncan Blood said: “I’m quite frustrated that as a farmer who’s struggling for staff, we’re sitting here talking about timescales, and yet every day we’re compromising our animal health and welfare for red tape.
“There’s cows we haven’t vaccinated this week because we’re short of staff and we can’t call on vet techs, and at the minute, all I’m hearing in this conversation, is it’s going to take time.
“We haven’t got time. We’ve got a labour shortage, a skill shortage.”