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Veterinary nurses are required to carry out at least 45 hours of CPD over a rolling three year period.
The results of an audit to discover how many veterinary nurses were complying with this requirement were presented at VN Council last week.
As part of the audit, the RCVS requested the CPD records of 1,016 veterinary nurses, including:
a random selection of around 10% of the profession who declared they were compliant when they renewed their registration;
veterinary nurses who declared they were non-compliant upon renewing their registration;
veterinary nurses who took part in the previous year’s audit who were not compliant;
veterinary nurses whose records were requested in the previous year who did not respond.
939 nurses responded, of which 72% (672) were found to be compliant and 28% (267) were non-compliant.
Reasons given by respondents for their failure to comply include maternity leave, family commitments, lack of time or opportunity and illness.
Eight members of the profession had been included in a total of seven of the previous annual audits and, each time, were found to be non-compliant.
As a result, Council decided that any veterinary nurse who was audited and found to be non-compliant in three consecutive years should have their records sent to the CPD Referral Group, a subcommittee comprising members of RCVS and VN Council who review cases of CPD non-compliance for both vets and VNs.
The CPD Referral Group makes decisions on how to follow-up these cases including, in the most serious instances, referring individuals to the Preliminary Investigation Committee.
Racheal Marshall, Chair of VN Council, said: "It is disheartening that a substantial number and proportion of the profession still aren’t compliant and that this proportion has remained static for the last three years with the same reasons occurring year after year including family commitments and lack of time and opportunity.
"However, CPD need not be onerous or expensive and can be done from the comfort of your own practice or home, it could, for example, involve reading relevant clinical papers in a veterinary magazine or journal, reflection on your professional practice, in-house training, participation in webinars and research for presentations as well as organised courses, lectures and webinars. The key is that CPD should be relevant to you and your role and should keep your skills, knowledge and competences up-to-date to ensure that you are providing the best possible care to your patients and clients."
One way to accumulate hours towards your annual CPD requirement is to participate in discussions and read content on VetNurse.co.uk. Just press the 'Claim CPD' above the content, and you'll be able to record the time spent, what you learned and how you plan to put it into practice. The system also records a link to the content you were reading, so you'll be able to refer back to it again later. Then, when you need to submit your record to the RCVS, you can export a VetNurse CPD certificate with your accompanying notes for the selected time period.
For more information about the CPD requirement for both vets and vet nurses, what activities might count as CPD, how to record your CPD and a series of frequently asked questions about CPD please visit www.rcvs.org.uk/cpd.
The full results of the CPD audit can be found in the papers for the February 2019 meeting of VN Council: www.rcvs.org.uk/who-we-are/vn-council/vn-council-meetings/6-february-2019/
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