The RCVS hopes to persuade some non-practising vets back to the front line

The RCVS is in hopes to persuade some non-practising vets back to the front line, due to staff shortages. Furthermore, it is in communication with EU vet schools that are overproducing graduates about possible methods to deliver more vets, and it is holding an all-stakeholders workforce meeting this autumn.

Lizzie Lockett, RCVS Chief Executive, stated: “We know there has been a workforce issue in terms of a shortage of skilled veterinarians for some time, but I think the ongoing impact of COVID has exacerbated the problem really. There is burnout, illness, various restrictions, so teams are struggling. We are also looking at recruitment from overseas, so ongoing considerations around direct accreditation of veterinary schools that have an overproduction in the EU, although there are capacity issues across Europe and the rest of the world, too. At the moment we are gathering research on this, who is on the register, which categories, factors in terms of where they are moving to, to try to build a full picture of what is going on. We have a lot of info on the register, but we also need to supplement that with a more detailed quality of work as well. Then we are going to feed that data into a workforce model, so it will match up with what the market demands are, so we can get both sides of that. And then we want to bring the data, or at least as much as we have got at that point, to a workforce summit possibly in November time. At the moment, there are lots of conversations happening with people and us, so with the vet schools and us, with the employers and us, with representative bodies and us, but we all need to be there and I think it is a really good example of how the college can hold a space for that conversation.”