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Nazrene Moosa

Should vets be as comfortable reading balance sheets as blood results? asks guest blogger

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Although the rise in employment within corporate practices has enabled young vets to focus on the veterinary science aspects of practice life, our latest guest blog argues that business training should still be an integral and encouraged part of undergraduate vet training.

The blog is written by Nazrene Moosa, a small animal vet who works in a busy practice in West Sussex. In the last 20 years, she has worked as a sole practitioner and owner, as well as for independent and corporate-owned practices.

Nazrene argues that through offering an environment that concentrates on hands-on work instead of involvement in practice finances and management, young vets working in the corporate sector might be missing out on developing vital business skills. She argues that such skills are essential if they want to leave the corporate world and move into an independent practice or even strike out on their own.

“The usual mantra from the corporates is that they allow vets to be vets rather than managers, they enable them to concentrate on the stuff that matters, rather than the humdrum financial and management issues that many vets have little or no interest in,” says Nazrene, arguing that while such business issues may not be “the sexy end of the job” they require skills that are “sadly lacking in many vets today.”

Nazrene believes a shift in attitude is required, to ensure that gaining greater knowledge and insight into the running of a successful practice is seen as a positive opportunity to make the practice the best it can be both for staff and clients. She concludes: “Ideally vets would be as comfortable reading balance sheets as blood results.”

This month’s poll asks visitors ‘Do you feel that you were given adequate business training at vet school?’ If you have a view on this topic, please make sure to take part in the poll and leave a comment on the blog.

Last month’s poll asked readers if there is a need for another veterinary nurse training option. This was in response to the guest blog by Laura Kidd, who discussed how more vet nurses can be encouraged into the profession and how practices can keep those nurses they have already. Over 100 people took part in the poll, with 57% agreeing that there should be another option to train to become a veterinary nurse.

Should vets be as comfortable reading balance sheets as blood results?

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Nazrene Moosa qualified as a veterinary surgeon from the University of Pretoria in South Africa in 1988. She has been in small animal practice ever since – first in South Africa and, for the last 18 years, in the South East of the UK. In the last 27 years she has worked as a sole practitioner/owner as well as for independent and corporate-owned practices, and currently works in a busy small animal practice in West Sussex.

When I first arrived in the UK almost 20 years ago, there were major changes afoot in the profession. My first job was in a corporate practice in Portsmouth, and I have some fond memories of being at the forefront of this new trend.

Nazrene Moosa

Nazrene Moosa

Since then the inexorable march of the corporate practice has forever changed the landscape of the veterinary profession in this country. The sheer number of corporate-owned practices means that, for many vets, and especially for newly graduated vets, a corporate employer will be all they know. Independent practices are becoming less the norm, especially in the small animal sector, and there is an almost inevitability that many of these will succumb to the lure of the corporate pound at some stage.

So the corporates have ensured the survival of many practices that may otherwise have disappeared into the annals of history. They provide employment for many young vets and formulate development programmes that support new graduates. They aim for gold standard care and try to achieve this within a financially sustainable environment. The usual mantra from the corporates is that they allow vets to be vets rather than managers, they enable them to concentrate on the stuff that matters, rather than the humdrum financial and management issues that many vets have little or no interest in. They have experts in human resources and management to do all of the non-veterinary stuff. But is there a way of incorporating (pun intended) vets in a more positive way so we’re more than ‘just vets’?

Fast forward to 2030 and I believe the profession is likely to be predominantly corporate based. Personally I would feel more comfortable if, over the years, something of a paradigm shift had occurred in the way vets viewed their roles. I am hoping, at some stage, the penny will have dropped and the powers that be at teaching institutions will have recognised the need for an increased amount of business training being an integral part of the undergraduate degree. It’s not the sexy end of the job, but needs must and it is an everyday skill that is sadly lacking in many vets today. I remain optimistic that the many development programmes that the corporates of today have in place will have translated into a new breed of vet who is comfortable with the multiple roles of vet/manager/financial expert. Ideally vets would be as comfortable reading balance sheets as blood results and be able to make decisions affecting ‘their’ practices with the knowledge and authority that will ultimately impact on their own lives, and those of their patients, in a positive way.

Read more about Nazrene Moosa →

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of either the RCVS or the BVA.

David Main

Veterinary professor argues that the profession should prove its animal welfare advocacy credentials

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In this month’s guest blog, an academic specialising in animal welfare argues that the profession needs to do more to deliver on society’s expectation of vets as animal welfare advocates.

David Main is Professor of Animal Welfare at the School of Veterinary Sciences at the University of Bristol, with research interests in welfare assessment, animal welfare education and intervention strategies to improve welfare.

In his blog Professor Main makes two key arguments. His first is that the profession urgently needs to deliver on society’s expectation of vets as animal welfare experts and, second, the introduction of safeguards to prevent inappropriate profit-seeking behaviour.

“Veterinarians could perhaps… do more at an individual level to act as animal welfare advocates. It is easy to inform clients on the technical rationale for a specific husbandry change but then walk away knowing full well the client will not action the advice. In the medical profession, advanced communication techniques are becoming more widely accepted to promote positive change within their patients. Perhaps we should be more explicit in teaching our veterinary students influencing skills,” he says on the first point.

On the second aspect of his argument, he believes the vast majority of individual veterinary surgeons and practices are not motivated by money and do have animals’ best interests at heart. However, he argues that “perceptions as well as reality matter amongst our clients and society,” adding: “The obvious difference between the business structure of veterinary and medical practitioners in the UK means the profession will always be at risk of challenge for excessive profiteering.

“Since we still live in the age of the media scare story, it would seem prudent for the profession to embed some anti-profit seeking safeguards in our regulatory controls before, rather than after, a problem is highlighted.”

He believes that such safeguards, which he says could be incorporated into the RCVS Practice Standards Scheme, would be a “healthy demonstration” that the profession has animal welfare rather than profit as its main priority.

In response to David’s blog, this month’s Vet Futures poll asks visitors ‘Do vets always act as animal welfare advocates?’ If you have a view on this topic, do make sure to take part in the poll and leave a comment on the blog.

The previous month’s poll, which was based on the blog co-written by Erwin Hohn and Adi Nell from MediVet, asked to what extent vets would be willing to work collaboratively with others if it would benefit all. Of the 50 who answered, 60% said they would be completely willing to work with others, 32% a lot and 8% to some degree – no one said they would be unwilling to work with others.

Are we animal welfare advocates or profit-seekers?

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David Main is Professor of Animal Welfare at Bristol Veterinary School. His research interests are welfare assessment, intervention strategies to improve welfare and animal welfare education. He is a former member of the Farm Animal Welfare Council, and current member of Soil Association Council. He is project co-ordinator of the AssureWel project; a collaboration with RSPCA and Soil Association, that aims to embed welfare outcomes into the assurance process of certification schemes.

He was principle investigator for the Healthy Feet project that has been widely adopted by the dairy industry and he is also part of the EU WelNet project that is a network of welfare scientists providing welfare advice to the European Commission. 

The recent survey from the Vet Futures project shows that the public place a high degree of trust in the veterinary profession. Despite this encouraging assessment I will argue in this article that the profession should work harder to deliver on a societal expectation for us to be animal welfare advocates and that it ought to introduce safeguards against profit-seeking influences on our clinical decisions.

David Main

Professor David Main

Profession urgently needs to deliver on society’s expectation as animal welfare advocates
Individual clinicians would be well justified to say that their daily ambition in veterinary practice is to promote the interests of animals in their care. However, a minimal scratch below the surface reveals obvious tensions in this well-intentioned mantra within the profession.

At an organisational level, the BVA can be applauded for campaigning for stunning at slaughter. However, this campaign is relatively uncontroversial as it does not conflict with the interests of clients of many BVA members. Could you imagine the BVA launching a public campaign encouraging the pig industry to change its husbandry system in order to reduce the need for tail docking in pigs or improving the prevention and treatment of lameness of dairy cows? It requires strong leadership for the profession to discuss issues that raise difficulties for clients that pay the practice bills. Hopefully discussion around the BVA Animal Welfare Strategy will focus our attention on such issues.

Veterinarians could perhaps also do more at an individual level to act as animal welfare advocates. It is easy to inform clients on the technical rationale for a specific husbandry change but then walk away knowing full well the client will not action the advice. In the medical profession, advanced communication techniques are becoming more widely adopted to promote positive change within their patients. Perhaps we should be more explicit in teaching our veterinary students influencing skills.

Advocacy requires us to promote our patient’s rather than our client’s interests at both an organisation and individual clinician level.

Profession ought to introduce safeguards preventing inappropriate profit-seeking behaviour
Whilst the profession is clearly focused on our client’s interests, widespread profit seeking behaviour amongst clinicians is unlikely. Clients are likely to avoid veterinary surgeons that they perceive to be focused on performing unnecessary expensive treatments. Furthermore, you do not talk need to talk to many veterinary clinicians to realise that money is rarely a primary driver.

I have also argued previously that offering the best veterinary treatments from the animal’s point of view is very often the most profitable for the practice. In practice I suggest that many veterinarians fail to offer the best treatment as they are overly worried about the financial impact on the owner. Since it is not our role to make judgments on how our clients should spend their money, our default position should be to offer the best treatment option. However, we should be careful to avoid causing guilt amongst owners that are not able to afford the treatment. Concentrating on the animal’s interest need not conflict with a legitimate need to operate a profitable veterinary business.

However, perceptions as well as reality matters amongst our clients and society. The obvious difference between the business structure of veterinary and medical practitioners in the UK means the profession will always be at risk of challenge for excessive profiteering. Since we still live in the age of the media scare story it would seem prudent for the profession to embed some anti-profit seeking safeguards in our regulatory controls before, rather than after, a problem is highlighted.

A potential safeguard could be a prohibition within the RCVS Practice Standards Scheme of crude turnover-based incentives. Salary based on performance, of course, is a legitimate management tool, but incentives could be based on health outcomes rather than simply selling more stuff. A debate at a practice or national level on the nature of these safeguards could be a healthy demonstration of the profession’s desire to act as animal advocates.

Read more about Prof David Main→

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of either the RCVS or the BVA.

Can vets work better together by playing to our strengths? ask guest Vet Futures bloggers Erwin Hohn and Adi Nell

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In this month’s blog, Erwin Hohn and Adi Nell, Senior Partners at Medivet, argue that the way forward for veterinary practices large and small is to work better together by following nineteenth-century economist Daniel Ricardo’s stricture – stick to what you do best.

In Medivet practices, say Erwin and Adi, “we play to our vets’ strengths by allowing each one to do what they do best. We’ll refer to each other internally or between branches in a group. That’s just what Ricardo suggested.”

The innovation suggested by Erwin and Adi is for individual vets to expand this principle out to work collaboratively with external parties – even “those we think of as competitors, both veterinary and non-veterinary. This would serve to advance the health and wellbeing of our patients, not just cure or prevent disease.”

Taking on board the Vet Futures ethos of the veterinary profession shaping its future for itself, Erwin and Adi argue for an extension of what, to a certain degree, happens already, such as the sharing of out-of-hours work or referrals to specialist centres. The pair argues:

“We can apply this more widely. Breeders could refer puppies to a small vaccination clinic. That branch does the vaccination, but sends the puppies to a larger practice for x-rays when they’re lame. In turn, the larger practice sends its inoculations to the vaccination clinic or small satellite, and they refer clients who want to buy puppies back to the breeder. I could, for example, support your investment in an MRI unit and you could support my laparoscopic surgery.

“This is how many human community health programmes work all round the world, right now.”

Refuting the claim that such working might be ‘pie in the sky’, Erwin and Adi make the case that such a collaborative approach deals with many of the challenges the profession  has identified, including reducing costs and enhancing financial viability as well as offering a way in which corporates can become part of the solution for smaller and independent practices. Erwin and Adi argue:

“It’s easier to develop business skills for a narrower range of services than a much broader one – and it’s easier to choose your own hours. That same focus makes regulators and legal compliance easier. Non-veterinary competitors become collaborators. Rising costs are controlled by the same narrower focus, and evidence-based medicine is enhanced by sharing outcomes.”

In relation to Erwin and Adi’s blog this month’s Vet Futures poll asks “To what extent would you be willing to work collaboratively with others if it would benefit you all: Not at all, To some degree, A lot or Completely?”

Last month’s poll focused on the balance between business skills and veterinary practice as a caring profession, asking “Can vet practice embrace the need for better business skills without damaging its reputation as a compassionate profession?” This was based on the blog written by John Sheridan, a management and business consultant to the veterinary profession and former BSAVA and VPMA President, who argued that veterinary businesses must be viable to continue to care and that “better business is essential for better medicine.” A significant majority of those who responded to the poll agreed that veterinary practice can embrace better business skills without damaging its reputation as a caring profession: 81% of respondents answered “Yes”, 14% said they were “Unsure” and only 5% answered “No.”

Could we work collaboratively with those we think of as competitors?

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Erwin Hohn and Adi Nell are both Senior Partners at Medivet. Erwin has a postgraduate degree in sociology and an MBA. Adi has advanced clinical qualifications and has recently completed MBA studies.

What’s coming?
None of us knows what the future will bring. There’s been much written in the vet press and many meetings have been held to look at the challenges we face. Major issues included work-life balance and

Erwin Hohn

Erwin Hohn

financial viability, the rise of corporates and feminisation in the profession, as well as standards of care. There are others: business skills, student debt, lack of leadership, excessive regulation and legislation, lack of evidence-based veterinary medicine, competition from non-vets, online pharmacies, mobile veterinary clinics, the Internet and its legions of unqualified experts, the rapidly-rising cost of offering a comprehensive service, and rising client expectations, to name just some.

We propose a new model of working together that could change the face of veterinary care. This model offers new ways of working and solutions to many of these challenges.

In 1817, the renowned economist Daniel Ricardo came up with a novel idea: stick to what you do best. This has been proved successful over and over again – but, oddly, is often overlooked. If you do what you do best and I don’t compete with that, but offer another service that I can do really well, we’ll maximise our profits and can support each other rather than competing.

Can we apply this to our profession?

Theory into practice
In our practices, we play to our vets’ strengths by allowing each one to do what they do best. We’ll refer to each other internally or between branches in a group. That’s just what Ricardo suggested.

Adi Nell

Adi Nell

By expanding this principle, we could work collaboratively with those we think of as competitors, both veterinary and non-veterinary. This would serve to advance the health and wellbeing of our patients, not just cure or prevent disease.

We already do this to a degree: practices share out of hours work, for example, or refer to specialist centres. The problem with the referral example is it’s currently one way only – if a complex fracture repair turns into an amputation, could it not be referred back to you?

We can apply this more widely. Breeders could refer puppies to a small vaccination clinic. That branch does the vaccination, but sends the puppies to a larger practice for x-rays when they’re lame. In turn, the larger practice sends its inoculations to the vaccination clinic or small satellite, and they refer clients who want to buy puppies back to the breeder. I could, for example, support your investment in an MRI unit and you could support my laparoscopic surgery.

This is how many human community health programmes work all round the world, right now.

Pie in the sky?
This collaborative approach deals with many of the challenges the profession has identified. By specialising in what each party does best, costs are reduced and financial viability is enhanced. Those who do what they love doing have fewer problems with work-life balance. Corporates become part of the solution. And client expectations are much easier to meet if we play only to our strengths.

It’s easier to develop business skills for a narrower range of services than for a much broader one – and it’s easier to choose your own hours. That same focus makes regulators and legal compliance easier. Non-veterinary competitors become collaborators. Rising costs are controlled by the same narrower focus, and evidence-based medicine is enhanced by sharing outcomes.

This utopia may seem difficult to achieve. But there are simple, practical steps that we can take right now to make our lives more professionally fulfilling, less stressful and more financially rewarding.

Reference:
Hohn, Erwin W (Sep 2014) The Development of Veterinary Community Health. Proceedings of the 39th World Small Animal Veterinary Association Congress, 249-252.

Read more about Erwin Hohn→
Read more about Adi Nell→

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of either the RCVS or the BVA.

Does profit-making damage the veterinary profession’s reputation?

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In this month’s blog, a former President of the British Small Animal Veterinary Association and the Veterinary Practice Management Association argues that practices should be more ‘business-minded’ when it comes to managing their resources.

John Sheridan, who is now a management and business consultant to the veterinary profession, argues that veterinary practices are over-reliant on generating profit from sales of medicines and that they should be seeking to make more from their professional services.

This is in line with one of the objectives identified during the first Vet Futures Group meeting in January 2015 which said that ‘practices should be less focussed on margins from medicine sales’.

John says: “My experience over the years as a management consultant to the profession indicates that the margin generated by the sales of medicines and other products after allowing for an appropriate share of establishment, overhead and staff costs is modest but certainly not excessive – whilst the margin generated by the sale of professional time and expertise hovers around nil and, in many practices, is negative.”

He says that, at a time of increasing competition and greater corporatisation, veterinary practices must be viable to thrive and points out that, based on available data, the amount of profit generated by independent practices is poor and declining in contrast to corporate groups.

While some independent practices may be concerned about their reputation and relationship with clients if they charge more for professional services, John argues that, with high trust levels in the profession (as demonstrated in our recent survey), vets should not be afraid of having a greater business focus – something he believes should be encouraged from vet school onwards.

“That reputation is our brand. It has been slowly built over many generations by veterinary surgeons and their practice teams up and down the country, every day of the week, dealing first hand with practical animal welfare challenges and delivering professional, caring and compassionate services for their owners.

“Will it continue? Of course it will – but only if veterinary practices continue to be viable businesses generating the revenue necessary to enable them to thrive, cover all their costs and, when judged appropriate by their owners, to offer professional services on a pro-bono basis for wild animals, stray animals and those belonging to individual owners in need,” adds John.

Overall, he argues that “better business is essential for the delivery of better medicine” as it allows for investment in facilities, equipment and skills.

In relation to John’s blog, this month’s poll asks ‘Can veterinary practice embrace the urgent need for better business skills without damaging its well-earned reputation as a compassionate profession primarily concerned with the welfare of the animals under its care?’

Last month’s poll looked at issues around the growth of palliative and hospice care in the veterinary profession and asked if this should become a standard part of practice. This was based on a blog written by former veterinary surgeon Kath Dyson arguing that additional expertise in end-of-life care could help the profession better provide lifelong care to their animal patients. A slim majority (56%) of the 193 people who took part in the poll argued that hospice care should not become a part of standard practice – 28% said it should, while 16% said they were not sure.

Does a business approach to veterinary practice management damage the profession’s reputation for care and compassion?

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John Sheridan was President of the British Small Animal Veterinary Association (1974-1975) and first President of the Veterinary Practice Management Association (1993-1996).

The list of goals identified by the first Vet Futures Group meeting included an objective that ‘practice should be less focused on margins from medicine sales’.

To my knowledge this is a message that has been promoted by the profession for at least the last 40 years. Conventional wisdom suggests that, for too long, vets have relied on generating profit from the sale of medicines to sustain the viability of veterinary practice, because they have been fearful of charging properly for their professional services.

After all those years, what has changed?

Not a lot!

However practice owners measure the success of their own business (animal welfare, client satisfaction, client/patient database growth, stable motivated employees, market share, professional standards, personal income etc), each one of those ambitions depends on the ability of the business to generate a healthy return on investment for the owner/investor and sufficient profit to finance growth and continuing investment in practice resources.

john_sheridan

John Sheridan

The limited income and expenditure benchmark data relating to the independent veterinary practice sector in the UK suggests, however, that the median real profit (after owners’ remuneration) generated by independent veterinary practices is poor and declining (circa 7% or less), when many ‘corporate’ groups are seeking and achieving 18% or more.

My experience over the years as a management consultant to the profession indicates that the margin generated by the sale of medicines and other products after allowing for an appropriate share of establishment, overhead and staff costs is modest but certainly not excessive – whilst the margin generated by the sale of professional time and expertise hovers around nil and, in many practices, is negative.

The problem is not confined to the UK and recent studies such as the VetPartners/National Commission on Veterinary Economic Issues /Bayer Animal Health North America study in the United States found that:

  • There was a clear link between the use of a range of business practices with practice profitability
  • 61% of study practices generated poor or negative levels of profit
  • Veterinary practice profits were lower than six other professional groups
  • Veterinary earnings were lower than seven other professional groups
  • A steady decline in client/patient database per veterinarian
  • A steady decline in median number of transactions per veterinarian
  • Six key factors that limit client visits to veterinary practice – four of which are under vet control

I suspect that a comparable study in the UK would result in similar findings. All this at a time of major challenges for veterinary practice owners grappling with the impact of:

  • More vet schools
  • More graduates
  • More practices
  • More competition in a demanding marketplace
  • Declining footfall
  • Shrinking client database
  • Downward pressure on veterinary salaries
  • More regulation
  • Growth in the ‘corporate’ sector and decline in the proportion of independent practices
  • Declining profits, practice values and pension investment
  • Growing stress

The literature review conducted by the Vet Futures team (January 2015) highlights a number of these and other issues and points towards some of the ways in which better business skills can address them.

What is the risk to the reputation of veterinary practice?
One of the cultural shifts that is expected to shape consumer behaviour, and identified by the Vet Futures literature review, concerns the growth of ‘mindfulness and the importance of ethical responsibilities’.

The good news is that vets are amongst the most respected professions and that 86% of Britons surveyed had a ‘great deal’ or ‘fair amount’ of respect for vets (Angus Reid Public Opinion 2014). More recent data from an omnibus survey carried out by the Vet Futures team amongst the GB public showed that 94% of the population trust veterinary surgeons generally or completely.

That reputation is our brand. It has been slowly built over many generations by veterinary surgeons and their practice teams up and down the country, every day of the week, dealing first hand with practical animal welfare challenges and delivering professional, caring and compassionate services for their owners.

Will it continue? Of course it will – but only if veterinary practices continue to be viable businesses generating the revenue necessary to enable them to thrive, cover all their costs and, when judged appropriate by their owners, to offer professional services on a pro-bono basis for wild animals, stray animals and those belonging to individual owners in need.

Will it continue? Of course it will – but only if the vet schools, our regulatory and professional bodies and the leaders and members of the practising arm of our profession, acknowledge that business expertise is as important as professional skills in the provision of veterinary services in a demanding marketplace.

Inadequate information leads to poor decision making and our professional bodies are currently ill-equipped to support the commercial needs of their members in practice or respond to adverse reports in the media about practice profits, veterinary fees and so on.

A major problem for the associations that represent the interests of the practising arm of the veterinary profession is that they simply don’t have any/sufficient generic information about the economic health of the practices that are owned by their members or where their members are employed.

Only when that information is readily available will the profession be in a strong position, backed by the evidence to prove it, to promote the message that:

  • Better business is essential for the delivery of better medicine
  • Veterinary fees are costly – so they should be. It’s simply not possible to offer comprehensive professional veterinary services on the cheap
  • In well-managed practices, however, vet fees represent excellent value for money and the payback in healthy pet animals and livestock kept commercially is substantial
  • A business-like approach to practice management is not a question of feathering the veterinary nest but of providing the facilities, the equipment, the skills and the commitment necessary to deliver the standard of professional expertise demanded by animal owners and by the profession’s regulatory bodies.

John Sheridan was President of the British Small Animal Veterinary Association (1974-1975) and first President of the Veterinary Practice Management Association (1993-1996). He was joint founder of Veterinary Practice Initiatives, the first veterinary corporate consolidator in the UK, and was Chief Veterinary Officer from its launch in July 1998 until he retired from the company executive team in 2003. John Sheridan now offers part-time management consultancy to the veterinary profession. He has spoken widely on veterinary practice management issues in the UK and overseas for many years, publishes the VeterinaryBusiness.org practice management resource and presents a new episode of the Veterinary Business Video Show every two weeks.

Read more about John Sheridan →

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of either the RCVS or the BVA.

Guest blogger asks if vets not working in clinical practice are viewed as ‘second class’ vets?

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In this month’s Vet Futures guest blog Javier Dominguez Orive, the Food Standard’s Agency’s Veterinary Director and Head of Foodborne Diseases Control Unit, asks if veterinary surgeons working outside clinical practice are considered ‘second class’ vets by the rest of the profession.

To tie in with the blog, this month Vet Futures is asking members of the profession whether vets are considered to be ‘second class’ vets if they work outside of clinical practice.

Javier Dominguez Orive suggests that veterinary surgeons in the UK can add value to society by using their skills and knowledge in non-clinical work, such as in the food processing industry or for the Government working on food safety policy.

He writes that veterinary surgeons, for instance, are best placed with their understanding of animal physiology, health and production to help prevent and control diseases by maintaining high standards of food and animal safety.

He says, however, that vets in other regions of the world, such as continental Europe, the USA, South America and Australia, are valued and recognised more for their non-clinical work than vets in the UK. He says it is widely accepted and encouraged in these regions that many veterinary graduates will pursue a career outside of clinical practice.

“Are we preparing the next generation of vets for these possible roles? Or are we creating yet another generation of veterinary surgeons who won’t consider these careers because they will be viewed as ‘second class vets’?,” he asks.

This month’s poll asks: Would you agree that vets working in non-clinical roles are considered ‘second-class’ vets? We encourage members of the veterinary team and the public to take part in the poll so that we can generate debate on the issue of non-clinical veterinary careers.

February’s poll asked members of the profession whether they agree that VAT should no longer be levelled on vet fees? A majority – 62% of the 107 respondents – thought that VAT should no longer be levelled on vet fees. Leaving 38% or 41 respondents believing that VAT should still be charged on vet fees.

 

Should VAT on vet fees for pets be dropped?

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Charging VAT on vet fees is a barrier to owners registering their pets with a veterinary surgery. This is the view of Stuart Winter, the Sunday Express small animal columnist and a campaigner to end VAT on pet fees.

This month we are asking you to consider whether VAT should be removed from vet fees. Owning a pet, argues Stuart Winter in our third guest blog, is not a luxury to be taxed when they need medical intervention but owning a companion improves the health and wellbeing of its owner.

Stuart Winter writes that removing VAT on vets’ fees for domestic animals, or at least reducing it to five pence in the pound, would improve the nation’s animal welfare. It would allow low-income families to seek medical attention earlier, he argues, while allowing more owners to afford and take out pet insurance.

He says that shifting Government thinking on the subject might be a Herculean task, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t campaign for its removal. “No Chancellor delights in losing revenue.  Treating, curing and caring for sick and injured animals is nothing more than a service and services are ripe to be harvested.

“It is time for a counter argument. Pet ownership is not a luxury. It is more than a privilege. Is it not a human right? Welcoming animals into our lives makes our lives more fulfilled and more civilised.”

This month’s poll asks: Would you agree that VAT should no longer be levelled on vet fees? We encourage members of the veterinary team and the public to take part in the poll so that we can generate debate on the issue of VAT and better understand the full consequences if it was removed.

NB the views expressed in the blog are Stuart’s own, and not necessarily those of the RCVS or the BVA.