15 Dec 2025
Practices are being urged to help boost the scheme’s “breadth and power” amid suggestions it could also help to address the sector’s broader transparency issues.
Allister Webb
Job Title
A scheme intended to reduce complications from canine cruciate surgery could help to address broader transparency concerns in the veterinary sector, a new report has claimed.
Leaders of the RCVS Knowledge Canine Cruciate Registry (CCR) say the project is now having a “genuine, positive impact” amid a big jump in recorded procedures and a significant fall in reported antibiotic usage.
Its latest annual report also highlighted the launch of a new complications dashboard that allows clinicians to compare their cases to the wider dataset.
Clinical lead Mark Morton argued that could now allow the project’s influence to spread even further in the context of the ongoing Competition and Markets Authority investigation.
He wrote: “The CCR can play an important role in supporting this, by helping us understand and communicate our own outcomes and complication rates in an open and meaningful way.”
The registry was initiated four years ago with the aim of improving patient outcomes by helping clinicians determine which techniques were most effective for their cases.
The latest report recorded a 40% rise in reported procedures over the past year, to 1,849, while the scheme now has nearly 600 registered users.
But it also revealed that postoperative antibiotic use in reported cases had fallen by nearly a fifth (19.3%) since 2021.
Vet and CCR user Kate O’Sullivan said: “I have stopped sending dogs home with antibiotics following surgery as a result of seeing that more than two thirds of surgeons do not prescribe postop antibiotics.”
RCVS Knowledge chair of trustees Amanda Boag urged practices to build on the report’s findings following what she described as “another impressive year” for the project.
She wrote: “We now know for certain that the CCR is having a genuine, positive impact on canine cruciate management, as well as other aspects of practice.
“Let’s continue to work together to build the breadth and power of this remarkable resource.”
