Dear Reader 

Well now that we are all settled into 2017 and have made it through the worst of the winter, with spring firmly upon us, it seems a good time to tell you what BVNA has been up to since October. We have lots of projects that are ongoing, mainly focussing on re-organising our own council and office to ensure our members have a strong BVNA body for the future.

Another project that is going very well is our VN Voice polls, a big thank you to those who have already signed up, your views are really helping us get the RVN and Student message across. The polls we have had so far include schedule 3 and its current form, how you feel about euthanasia of pets for behavioural reasons and nurse consultations.

The schedule 3 responses we received have helped us to form our positioning statement that was given to the RCVS. This will ensure your voices are heard when this important piece of legislation is looked at. During the VNFutures roadshows, it was confirmed to us how important this piece of work will be to the futures of the profession. I felt really empowered writing that positioning statement as it was one of the first pieces that wasn’t just written with BVNA council voices but with our membership voices, it meant so much to me to really put a piece of work in that was what you felt.

Another poll that was run looked at nurses’ consultation, this was following a press release from Onswitch that stated only 5% of Veterinary Surgeons referred suitable cases to nursing clinics. Sadly, our poll showed very similar figures with comments received about feeling undervalued and RVN not able to use their skill set to help owners and their pets with chronic diseases. We will be taking these findings to other associations like BVA to see if suitable intra-professional voices can help to improve things for nurses.

If you have not yet signed up to VN Voice, please do so, this is your profession and this is one way to get your voice heard. We purposely only make a small poll every 6-weeks not to take up too much of your time. However, the information we receive is precious so please sign up today.

Also if you think there is a burning issue BVNA has not yet added to our poll then please just drop me an email.

Hope to hear from you all soon.

Author

Sam Morgan DipAVN (Med & Surg) RVN

BVNA President

VOL 32 • April 2017 • Veterinary Nursing Journal