Petcare

Host: Mark Ryes (MR)

Guests: Lynne Hill (LH)

MR: Hello there, welcome along to the programme this afternoon. We all love our pets. If you've got dogs, cats, rabbits, whatever, they become part of the family, don't they. But when you need to take them to the vet what do you look for? How do you find a good vet and how do you know they're a good vet in the first place? Well, joining me to hopefully get into it a little bit more and find out more is Lynn Hill, the President of the RCVS, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. Lynn, welcome along.

LH: Hi.

MR: It's a difficult one when you've got a pet and they're ill for the first time and maybe you haven't had a pet before, you go along to your local one. You've got no idea whether it's a good practice or a bad practice but you've launched an accreditation scheme so hopefully, consumers will have some idea now.

LH: Yeah, absolutely, because what most people do, they ask their next door neighbour, they ask their friend, 'Do you know a good vet?' and hopefully someone can help you out and that's a good way of finding a vet. But you know there are as you say, instances ... you've moved into an area, you've just got a new pet, you've no idea, so how can you find one. Well, we've launched this scheme which is a Practice Standards Accreditation Scheme and what we're saying to the public is, 'You can rest assured and have peace of mind about this practice because we've been in. We've had a look at it and had a look behind the scenes and we can say to you this is a good practice to go to.'

MR: Well, we'll come to how you get to that judgement in a moment's time. Adam's asked a question already. He says, "What qualities should pet owners look out for when we're taking our pets to the vets and what makes it a good or bad vet to start with?"

LH: Well I suppose good and bad vets and good or bad practices are slightly different things.

MR: Of course, yes

LH: And I think the most important thing in choosing your vet is to have the right relationship with your vet. Get to know your vet and be sure that you can communicate with them.

MR: Well you make that sound quite easy. I guess if you're just going for the first time that's not so easy as a human going to the doctor perhaps.

LH: No it's not, I mean building up a relationship takes time but I think when you look at a practice you actually arrive, have a look at the feel in the practice from the start. How are you greeted from the receptionist? Do you get that smile? Are you welcomed in? And that's the first thing, but then what we're trying to also say that you as a client will only see a very small area of that practice. You will see the outside, you'll see the waiting room and you'll probably see the consult room. You'll meet one or two of the personnel but, of course, in a practice same as in a hospital, behind the scenes are really what's important. So you need to know what's going on behind and you can't always get in to see that yourself.

MR: No, it's interesting. When I first took my dog to the vet I asked if I could see behind the scenes and it wasn't convenient at that point but they did invite me back at another point to have a look around. Is that normal?

LH: Absolutely. Well, I think it's not always normal that people ask that question but why not ask the question and a lot of practices actually will either have regular days where they're open for clients to come and have a see or they'll have an annual day whereby they'll open the practice up and have a fun day with their clients and so people can see behind the scenes.

MR: Excellent. Well Laura's asked us a question. She says, "Can you explain exactly how vets will be accredited and will there be different accreditation marks depending on the standard of that practice?"

LH: Okay, well as a starting point there's two things. We have gone for an accredited practice mark if you like, for practices.

MR: So a single mark.

LH: A single mark that people look for. However, within that single mark there are actually a lot of different categories because practices come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They come from single person practices to multi-discipline practices and spread over different areas. They come from farm animal practices to equine to small animal so we've got a huge plethora of practices to cover. But what we're saying to the public specifically at this point is 'Look for the logo.' Now how that's going to work is that practices will apply to join the scheme and then we will send out inspectors who are trained veterinary surgeons, who know what they're looking for and they will go out and they will inspect the practices for all sorts of aspects from the tidiness and the cleanliness of their facilities to the actual equipment that they have; that they have continuing training and support for all levels of staff within that practice, to their clinical outcomes for their treatments and procedures. So it covers a wide, wide area.

MR: It really does and another question has just come in from Charlotte. Thank you for your question, Charlotte and do keep your questions coming, "Does this mean we should only go to practices with the accreditation and what if there isn't one local to me?" A good question.

LH: Well, two things. No, of course you shouldn't just go - we're not saying that at this particular point. This is a new scheme; it's a voluntary scheme and we're delighted with the uptake so far because actually we've over fifty per cent of the practice premises in the United Kingdom already on the scheme which is really good news. But there are lots of good practices out there which, for whatever reason, haven't chosen to come on and that's fine. We also have a lot of people in the pipeline waiting for accreditation, waiting for inspection.

MR: I guess it can't all happen on day one, can it, no.

LH: Absolutely. No, it can't it just can't happen. It's going to be a long term thing, but that is good and that is happening and so we're welcoming people on all of the time but we're not saying that because you're not on it, you're no good. There's lots of really, really good practices out there in all aspects.

MR: So some of the things to remember is that it is voluntary but it is worthwhile looking for the mark. You've talked about the mark. As a consumer, what do I look for? Is there going to be a sticker or what?

LH: Yes, you should see in practices a number of things. They'll have a certificate on the wall which says they've been inspected and accredited. They'll have a little logo. We have little logos which say, 'RCVS Accredited Practice'. You should look for that. There will be leaflets in each of the practices denoting what category that practice is actually in which tells the customer and the client more about the individual things that they can expect from that practice and we've got nice stickers for the cars and all as well which clients can have and use.

MR: The whole kit and kaboodle!

LH: Yes.

MR: Val Harris has sent a question as well. Thank you, Val. "How do I know if my vet's any good? It's a simple question but it's loaded.

LH: Well, how do you know if your vet personally is good? Veterinary Surgeons are all regulated by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and we can at the moment and we do regulate individual veterinary surgeons. We expect a very high level from our veterinary surgeons and I think that's what we get. Veterinary surgeons are trained very well; they continue to train themselves in the practice. So I think people in general can be very satisfied with the level of vets. Our problem at the Royal College is that all we can do at the moment is regulate individual veterinary surgeons. Practice has changed hugely and not all practices are owned by veterinary surgeons anymore.

MR: Well that's a very interesting point. What you're actually saying is the RCVS has looked at vets - individual vets for many, many years. This is a new scheme to actually see the practices.

LH: It is, because we are regulated by the Veterinary Surgeons Act of 1966 and then most practices were just owned by veterinary surgeons, by partnerships or by single vets. Now life has changed. There are corporate practices, there are practices owned by venture capitalists, owned by veterinary nurses, owned by other lay people. We can't, under the law, regulate those particular people. We can still only regulate veterinary nurses and veterinary surgeons. So what we want to do is to take it a level further. At this point we can only have a voluntary scheme but we would like a change in the Veterinary Surgeons Act eventually which would also bring the licensing of veterinary premises.

MR: Excellent stuff. We've had a number of questions in. It's something that bothered me when I first looked for a vet. When you go to a large practice with several vets actually within it, you're often allocated a vet. It's a bit like going to the dentist, I guess. If you're unhappy with that vet or don't think that maybe you're getting the right kind of care from that vet, can you chop and change within that practice? Is that normal?

LH: Yes, well I think anybody should. All practices want to try and meet their clients needs, I think every practice would and I think that if a practice felt that that vet - and certainly, as a veterinary surgeon myself, if I felt that I wasn't communicating well with a client, I'd far rather that they went to another vet within my practice than obviously left my practice.

MR: Of course.

LH: So they would want to meet the needs and so if a client feels that they're just not clicking really with that veterinary surgeon they should definitely ask if next time around they could see somebody else. Maybe they could say the type of person that they like to communicate with and the I'm sure the receptionists will do their best.

MR: But you do understand, don't you. As much as it's difficult for us to do that with doctors as humans it's quite difficult for us as pet owners.

LH: Yes.

MR: You know, you have a receptionist there; it's quite a difficult thing to ask. Should we go about it in any particular way or is it better to be straightforward?

LH: I think it's better to be straightforward. You can say it very pleasantly and just say, 'You know I don't quite click off with that person, is there somebody else?' or maybe I'd like to have a male veterinary surgeon or maybe I might like to have a female veterinary surgeon or 'My cat's very nervous', have they got a veterinary surgeon that's very good with cats for instance. Something like that is always helpful and I think the receptionist will try to help as much as they possibly can.

MR: Excellent. So don't be afraid to chop and change if you need to. Now John's sent us an interesting question. You've talked about the accreditation scheme and how it's launched, "Will charities and the charity veterinary surgeons practices have to be accredited too?"

LH: Well there again, because it's a voluntary scheme, yes, if they want to get involved they can be and a number of the charities have got involved and are getting involved and some of them are going through the process of actually inspecting them at the present time. But the same standards are expected of charity practices; exactly the same as they would be of any other practice.

MR: Sure. Now, I'm a pet owner, you're a pet owner. It can be expensive at times. If you go to an accredited vet will we suddenly be facing more charges, will it be more expensive?

LH: I'm delighted to say no, although there obviously is a cost to practices for joining. The cost is actually quite minimal and small and when you actually break it down to the number of consults etc that would have happened in a practice in a year the pet owner shouldn't see any difference at all. What you should actually see is probably better practice and the practice being much more focused on you, as the client.

MR: Excellent stuff. I've been to my vet and in the waiting area and the bits that the public do see, it's very shiny, it's all very new, it's lovely. How do you know what's going on behind the scenes?

LH: Well, I suppose you don't and that's where we come in really and that's our job and that's one of the reasons why I think that people should be looking for practices preferably with this mark because we're your eyes. We're your eyes behind the scenes. We're going in and making sure that the cleanliness that you see out front happens in the back, that all of the equipment is there and it's in working order, that all the staff are trained and are continually trained. We're talking about all the staff from receptionists, to nurses, to veterinary surgeons; nobody is excluded out of that. So we're your eyes and you can trust us.

MR: It is nice to know that when you ring your veterinary practice, whoever answers the phone is available and ready to deal with anything that you might throw at them because very often you're in a panic when you ring because something's wrong with your animal.

LH: Absolutely and I think that one of the things that on feedback we've had from the practices that have come into the scheme is they've said it's made them stop and think of the protocols of all the things that they do such as answering the phone. What do they do, what do their receptionists say in an emergency if all the vets are busy somewhere? How do they deal with the upset client, how do they settle them down and make sure that they the best thing is done for the pet? And so all of that is taken into account within the practice standards scheme.

MR: Excellent stuff. I'm speaking with Lynn Hill today, the President of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. If you'd like to ask her a question about the new accreditation scheme all you've got to do is look at the box just underneath where we're speaking to you on your screen and send us a question, not so much about pet care, more about vet care. More about how you find a vet and if you've got a question please do send it to us. Claire wants to know, "How will the accreditation affect me and how it is likely to improve the service that I get at the vets which is pretty good already?"

LH: Good, well I'm glad her vet is good and that's what the majority of vets are like and I think that's one thing we should make clear. We're actually, as a college, very happy with veterinary surgeons. We think that the service they give is very good but we want to just make it that extra level so that the clients can have total peace of mind and for somebody using a practice, what it's going to give them is that reassurance. But because the practices will then have protocols for dealing with the client, things like ensuring that there's proper estimates for bills, that the bills are itemised, that there's a complaints procedure within that practice should an issue evolve and that those can all be dealt with and that the practice already have those in situ so that if there is an issue, if there is a problem it's all there for you and that should be helpful to the client.

MR: Well, I guess the interesting thing is once you've got an accreditation mark you don't want to be losing it. Are there ways that a veterinary practice can go downhill and they could have their mark taken away from them?

LH: Well, that would be possible, yes. Obviously this is a new scheme and what happens is that we are inspecting the practices every four years on a four-year cycle and then annually the practices have to self-certify. However, we do spot checks and we are ...

MR: Like mystery shopping. Got you!

LH: Absolutely. We do tell them we're coming with a small amount of notice, not a lot but they do know that we're coming. But we're going to do five percent of practices on the scheme every year, we're going to do these spot checks

MR: And considering how many vets practices there are in the country that's actually quite a lot, isn't it.

LH: It is quite a lot of checks but what we will do is if we go in and find that people aren't meeting the standards that we think, we will help them to try and get up to the standard if they've fallen down in certain levels. We'll try to help them get up, what they can do and they have to send us evidence in of that.

LH: It is quite a lot of checks but what we will do is if we go in and find that people aren't meeting the standards that we think, we will help them to try and get up to the standard if they've fallen down in certain levels. We'll try to help them get up, what they can do and they have to send us evidence in of that.

LH: If they had fallen down in the aspect that you said, 'very low down', we would actually put in a re-inspection and we would go back and re-inspect the whole practice and if necessary, we would take the mark away from them if they weren't reaching the standards because there's not much point in having the scheme if it's not meaningful.

MR: Absolutely, Sue's just sent us a question. Thank you for your question, Sue. "Is the accreditation available across the whole country, the whole of the UK?" She says, "I live in Birmingham, how can I find out if my local vet has the accreditation?"

LH: Okay. Well yes it is and that's great, we've got lovely maps which we look at and it gives us the mapping of where all practices are and where people are on the scheme. We launched this to the practice and the professions in January 2005, we've launched it now to the public because we wanted to make sure we had coverage over the whole of the country so that people could go to their vets. Now how Claire can go to her vet is if they go to the website which is www.findavet.org.uk, they can look up their veterinary practice there or look up practices in their area.

MR: So www.findavet.org.uk, it's a great sounding website as well. So there you go, you can actually find your local accreditation. So we're talking England, Ireland, Scotland - presumably Northern Ireland ...

LH: Northern Ireland, yes the whole of the United Kingdom is covered.

MR: And Wales, fantastic stuff. How many people have joined so far because we're talking early on in the scheme so far?

LH: We are but we have over fifty percent of practice premises in the whole country

MR: Wow!

LH: ... on board already, which we're delighted at. I mean that's marvellous. We've had previous schemes which have covered a much smaller number of practices within the United Kingdom and this now joined up scheme, because it covers farm animal work, equine animals, small animals, it's much more widespread, but we're delighted.

MR: So it's not just small pet owners, it's not just dog and cat owners.

LH: No, no it's not. No, there are different categories for horses, equine can have - at a general practice level and also at a hospital level and we also we have farm animal general practice as well which is a real change and a real boost.

MR: So there should be one in a town near you if you've got fifty percent, absolutely.

LH: Yes, there absolutely should be, yes, yes.

MR: Well we're half way through our chat now, do keep your questions coming, you've asked some fantastic questions so far. Just look at the little box where you can submit your question. It will come through to the studio via our moderators so please do join in for the rest of the programme. Now I've got two dogs. I promised I would mention them, Cutie and Slinky.

MR: I know, I didn't name them myself! They're miniature Dachshunds. Hopefully, we'll be able to take a look, there we are, that's me when Slinky was very, very small. I think she's probably about eight weeks there. Now a lot of animal owners worry when their pets have to go for the very first time to the vets.

LH: Yes.

MR: Ooh look, there's Slinky in the little tiger slippers, how funny, hahaha!

LH: Oh, there you are, how sweet, haha.

MR: And there they are as adults, Cutie and Slinky. When I first took Slinky to the vet we had just moved area.

LH: Right.

MR: And I didn't know what I needed to look for. Are there certain things, apart from asking neighbours and friends, what I should be doing as well as the accreditation mark?

LH: Well, I think asking your friends and neighbours is always a good thing because then you get the personal contact.

MR: Sure.

LH: You get the personal feel about it. You can go to the website we just mentioned and have a look to see if there's a practice on the scheme, that's always going to be worthwhile and then I think go and meet the vets yourself. Go in and have a look at them, you know, vet them yourself, if you like.

MR: Indeed.

LH: Because again, you want to make sure that the practice you're going to meets your ethos if you like and not all practices are the same and that's fine and we welcome diversity, I think it's much better. But you will have the single person practices of very maybe personalised service. You might have a larger practice that can also give you a personalised service but has a lot of other things attached to it and so you need to decide to go to what you want. So go round and visit some practices maybe, get to see what they're like and whether or not they fit with you.

MR: You don't always have to go for the most local or the first one you come across.

LH: No, of course you don't and I think most people do. I mean again, we know that most people will go to those things but no, you don't. I think it's much more important, it's like when you go to work for a company, you want to be comfortable at the company you work for. You also want to be comfortable with the veterinary practice because you're going to need them in a time of stress so you need to get on with them. You need to know that they understand you and you understand them.

MR: And it's also, I guess, important before that time of stress to have checked them out.

LH: Yes. Absolutely, get yourself registered in a practice, go and see them and, as I say, make that that when you ring them up in an emergency you also know how they deal with an emergency because different practices have different ways of dealing with emergencies. Some of them will deal with them themselves, some of them will be sending you for instance, to a twenty four hour service or an emergency clinic and you need to know about that before you actually need it.

MR: Can we get into a specific here? I've got a specific question from Sarah. You mention that to get the accreditation mark you do a rigorous inspection.

LH: Yes.

MR: What is a rigorous inspection? What happens?

LH: Well, what happens is it's made up of various parts. There's a lot of paperwork that you need ...

LH: Well, what happens is it's made up of various parts. There's a lot of paperwork that you need ...

LH: Which is hardly surprising, isn't there always. But part of the paperwork is regulatory things, things to do with health and safety, things to do with job contracts, that type of thing. But we go out and check that so when an inspector arrives the practice will have a whole list of things that they need to have for the practice inspector to look at. The practice inspector will then go through that list and will go through in detail all of the paperwork.

MR: Right.

LH: That will include the standing operating procedures for cleanliness within and how they clean kennels for instance, to the job descriptions for the veterinary surgeons and the receptionists, to looking at what the risk assessments are for using certain drugs. All of those will be gone through in detail to make sure they're all there, the fire regulations, the radiography regulations, all of that is gone through first.

MR: That's the first stage, we'll just have a look at some pictures of vets in practice while you tell us more about this rigorous inspection.

LH: Okay, alright, and then what'll happen is that the inspector will walk around the practice and they have a list of questions looking at all the different aspects, whether it's out-patient, in-patient, diagnostic, theatre work, kennels and they will go through and ask questions, tick the boxes to see whether or not there's appropriate answers for each of those. And things like when we're looking at theatre work ...

MR: Oh, that looks like my little dog!

LH: It does.

MR: It's not but ...

LH: ... and there we can see whether or not there's appropriate equipment within that practice to be able to do basic diagnostics.

MR: Because I guess equipment evolves all the time; there's new equipment coming in all the time.

LH: Absolutely, it does and I mean it's very expensive to run a veterinary practice. I mean we've all heard about the National Health Service running out of money in lots of areas well, if you've got to think that each veterinary practice is really an individual small business, they have to function and they have to fund that themselves and equipment is very, very expensive whatever equipment it might be. Whether it's kennelling or whether it's operating equipment as well.

MR: And that might be an area where a lot of pet owners actually do get in contact with their own vet simply because a lot of animals will need kennelling at various points so useful to go and check all of that, I guess.

LH: Yes, well it is. It's useful to know what's going on and some practices you'll walk into and they'll actually have photographs of the behind-the-scenes. You can see the kennels, or they'll produce leaflets and brochures that you can have a look at so you can have that little look behind to see what's going on because when you're worried about your animal you want to know, if they're in kennels, that they're comfortable.

MR: Very much so, especially not only as a pet owner but also as a farmer. If you're looking after horses as well it's big business and they're very expensive animals.

LH: They are, absolutely and you want to know that your vet's up to the mark and the practice is up to the mark and that they can do the work to the standard that you expect really.

MR: And so the accreditation scheme is in now. You're saying you've got about fifty percent of the vets on board.

LH: Yes.

MR: It is voluntary, as we've discussed.

LH: Yes it is.

MR: Are you hoping that the vast majority will take advantage of the scheme?

LH: Well we certainly do. I mean, as I say, we're very proud of the profession because actually it takes improvement on board even though it doesn't have to. We've a huge number of vets that go on continuing education programmes, that get post-graduate qualifications. Even though they don't have to they do so anyway.

MR: Right.

LH: And within the practice scheme we're very pleased that so many have come on board on the voluntary scheme.

MR: Very much so. Pam wants to know, I've just had a question in from Pam, thank you very much and do keep your questions coming in. There's still a little bit of time to get your questions through, "When do the RCVS officially become a public body?"

LH: Well I think we are a public body because that's why we're there actually, is to sustain and promote public confidence in the veterinary profession. We are a brought in under Statute from the Government under the Veterinary Surgeon's Act which is in 1966 and we're governed by that and we have to work within that Veterinary Surgeon's Act. Now that's one of the reasons why this scheme has to be voluntary rather than mandatory at the present time.

MR: Okay, so there are reasons definitely why it is voluntary.

LH: Absolutely, yes there are because we're only under the Statute allowed regulate individual veterinary surgeons and not veterinary practices.

MR: Right.

LH: Now we are pushing for a new Veterinary Surgeon's Act, for an updated Veterinary Surgeon's Act for all sorts of reasons. This is one of them, that we would like to be able to license veterinary practices and so we would like to be able to make this mandatory. Very interestingly enough when we did a consultation with the profession as a whole and said, 'Would you like a scheme, would you like it mandatory or voluntary?' the vast majority of vets actually said, 'We'd like it mandatory and we'd like it mandatory now.'

MR: And I guess if your veterinary practice isn't part of the scheme there's no reason why you can't go in and say, 'Are you going to be joining? Why aren't you going to be joining?' and find out.

LH: Well you certainly could and, as I say, we're not saying that because they're not there that they're not a good practice, they may very well be.

MR: No and that's very important to point out.

LH: It is.

MR: It may be that they are planning on joining or whatever.

LH: They may well be and there is, as I've said, a lot of paperwork to get up to date and to get into the things and a lot of practices take time to get that developed and it doesn't happen overnight. So people are working towards that or they may have decided for one reason or another that it's not for them.

MR: Well, one of the things, of course, that we were talking about is what do you look for when you go into your vet's practice. We've actually got the RCVS logo so that's going to be part of this.

LH: Yes.

MR: There it is so that's what you're looking for, 'RCVS Accredited Practice' and that presumably, if they are accredited, is going to be somewhere big in the window or at the reception or ...

LH: Absolutely and practices that I have visited they've had them on the reception desk. They have the nice logo there, you'll find it in ads for instance in the Yellow Pages, you'll find people have been putting it - you'll find it in brochures and you'll also find it on some of the car stickers that we have that are going and saying, 'My practice is the cat's whiskers' and things like that which I know vets are giving to their clients and they're using them and putting the message of an accredited practice out there.

MR: I guess you'll find that on various practices web pages as well so if you go to their websites you'll be able to check that too.

LH: Absolutely, yes. I even got an email from a vet the other day and he'd even got the accreditation on his email tag, on his signature and it was going out to everyone.

MR: So you're certainly hoping and, as I said, this is early days of the scheme yet, that it becomes a very widely recognised mark as well.

LH: Absolutely, I mean we know that the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons is not a name that tips off the tongue of most pet owners. But we would like them to get familiar with the RCVS accredited practice and that's why we're keeping it really simple at the moment saying, 'Look for the logo' and just understand by seeing that logo that you can actually have some peace of mind.

MR: Denise wants to know a question and it's something that crossed my mind as well. Thank you for your question, Denise, still a few minutes to get your questions in by the way, "Will the new scheme really work if it's voluntary, is there no way it can be made mandatory ..." we've touched on that, "... So that all practising vets practices have to be accredited?"

LH: Well, that's where we would like to be. At the moment we just can't do that because of the law and that's it really, unfortunately.

MR: But the point that Denise is making is will it actually work if it's voluntary?

LH: Well, I think it will and the reason why I think it will is because veterinary surgeons have always shown they want to improve themselves.

MR: Right.

MR: Right.

MR: So has this come from the profession really?

LH: It has. I mean we've had two schemes. We had a hospital scheme which did for small animals and equine and we had a small animal scheme and that was all that we had but it didn't cover the plethora. Now they had got to a certain point but they couldn't really take it any further and they came to us and we went to them almost at the same time and said, 'What about looking at a wider scheme?' and they said yes, they'd like their schemes to come into us and as a regulatory body it seems the good hold to have actually, regulation of practices.

MR: Very nice.

LH: but I think veterinary surgeons do want to improve, that's the type of people they are. They always want to improve and I think if veterinary surgeons hadn't come onto the hospital scheme for instance, which takes a lot to put it into progress, you need a lot of equipment, a lot of investment, you know if they didn't want to improve nobody would have gone onto that kind of scheme.

MR: No, I guess not, no, absolutely.

LH: And yet they do and I think, that within a scheme that's relatively new to have over fifty percent of people already on it, I think is actually a tribute to the veterinary profession.

MR: Well you've raised an interesting question. You've got fifty percent of the vets in the country already, how long has this been in the planning? How long has this taken to all pull together so that it can be announced today?

LH: Well, we brought it into the profession in January 2005 and we've been working then on getting practices in on that and so here we are, sort of fifteen months down the road at this particular point.

MR: So boy, your people have been working hard! Getting fifty percent of practices accredited within less than eighteen months!

LH: Absolutely, we have. We've grandfathered some of them in through other schemes that have been inspected as well and we've brought them in with the veterinary nursing scheme etc and that has helped but now we're onto the cycle of constant inspections. So we do have some very hard working inspectors and some very hard working staff within the college.

MR: I can imagine, I can imagine. Now it's important to recognise that all vets have lots and lots of qualifications. I mean some more so than doctors as well, but this is also talking about practice staff, this is talking about practice managers, receptionists.

LH: Yes.

MR: So I mean vets aren't really in question, it's a question of is everybody in the practice pulling together.

LH: Yes, well it is and this is very much the feedback we're getting back from practices as well this scheme has helped them to work together as a team because they've sat everybody down and said, 'How are we doing this protocol and process? Let's do it all together.' And it's really brought a camaraderie within practices to get the accreditation there and they feel really, really proud that they've got it and they can say now to their clients, 'Look, we are doing our work at a recognised standard both from the time when we pick up the phone to the time that your animal is in and goes home. We're looking after you and we know that our standard is a recognised standard in the industry.'

MR: Excellent. I must just apologise to some people. We've had some questions in on pet care. This hasn't really been a chat about pet care today but I wonder if we'll do one of those in the future. This is really to find a vet and make sure a vet's practice is good in your area and Pete has sent us a question saying, "Can you explain the accreditation system again?" He missed the beginning of the programme.

LH: Okay.

MR: So it's well worthwhile going over. It's a brand new scheme launched, as far as the public is concerned, today that fifty percent of vets are involved with.

LH: Yes, it's a voluntary scheme set up by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons which is a regulator of veterinary surgeons themselves and it's to give clients really, peace of mind that they know that their practice has been independently inspected and is reaching a standard of care that they can trust.

MR: And you look out for the mark. It's a very obvious mark as well, I wonder if we can bring it up just before the end of the show as well. So stickers and everything and it's worthwhile asking your vet as well if they're accredited.

LH: Yes, ask them. Go in and ask them about the scheme. Ask them are they on it, which you should see the stickers or ask them are they going for it, to have a look at it. As I say, you can go on our website to find a vet, www.findavet.org.uk and find out whether your vet practice is on the scheme or whether there's another one if you're new to an area in your area that you can visit.

MR: We've talked about my little dogs, we've just had a question in here from Mike in Yeovil, "Do you have pets?" because, "What does a vet look for in a vet?" That's a great question.

LH: Yes well I do have pets. I have two cats actually at the moment. Unfortunately, I had four animals about a year ago and now I'm down to two so I'm not doing very well but they were very old so I've actually done pretty well but yes I do, I have two cats at the moment. I'm really a cat person at the present time.

MR: And I'm really a dog person at the present time so we've kind of got small animals covered as well.

LH: Yes we have.

MR: Lynn, thank you so much for coming in, Lynn is the President of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons talking about the accreditation scheme. You now know what to look for in your vet. Thank you very much indeed for joining us.

LH: Thank you.

MR: And I hope you'll join us for another programme again soon.