Guest blog by Dr Elizabeth Mullineaux, Senior Vice President, British Veterinary Association
Dr Liz Mullineaux is Senior Vice President of the British Veterinary Association and an RCVS Specialist in Wildlife Medicine. She works in a variety of roles supporting British wildlife including as an advisor to a large wildlife rescue charity and in academic teaching, as well as a locum for a small animal emergency serviceAs a veterinary graduate of the late 1980s, I’m almost the same age as the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 (VSA) and have spent much of my working life seeing the Act trying to keep up with a quickly changing profession. Veterinary medicine has developed so much in sixty years, which has made for an exciting career. What we can do clinically to help animals as veterinary professionals is a world away from the ’60s, but there have also been great changes to the ‘industry’ of veterinary medicine with the rise of large corporate groups.
Veterinary surgeons are no longer the only professionals working with animals in clinical settings. We are supported by a wide range of allied veterinary professionals including equine dental technicians, cattle foot trimmers and musculoskeletal therapists. The oldest of these allied professions is veterinary nursing, which is especially vital in the small animal practices that care for the nation’s pets. Without our vet nurse colleagues, most vets would struggle carrying out even basic surgeries and medical procedures - in the world of modern veterinary practice, their skills are essential to everything we do. Despite this, the title of ‘Veterinary Nurse’ is not protected, meaning literally anyone can call themselves a veterinary nurse with no training or professional competencies. The protection of professional titles is just one part of the proposals for reform of the VSA, a piece of work currently being consulted upon by Defra until 25 March.
The consultation is a milestone that marks a decade of work by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS), British Veterinary Association (BVA) and British Veterinary Nursing Association (BVNA). The RCVS’s Legislation Working Party (LWP), established in 2017, had examined the VSA and set out proposals for reform. The LWP report (2020) formed the basis for Defra’s work over 2025, which ultimately led to the current consultation document. During the first six months of 2025, Defra hosted a series of task and finish pieces of work, referred to as ‘sprints’, which brought together RCVS, BVA and BVNA, alongside the Vet Schools Council, Government Veterinary Services and representative bodies for allied veterinary professionals. As the BVA representative on this group, I can say that the work was at times challenging, but ultimately rewarding, as the draft consultation took shape. I’m really proud of being part of what has been achieved, although the consultation is of course only the first hurdle in a long process to a reformed Act.
One of the key changes proposed in the consultation is the regulation of veterinary businesses. Since 1999, non-vets have been able to own veterinary practices and this has significantly changed the face of veterinary practice with a rise in practice ownership by large corporate groups, from 10% of practices in 2013 to an estimated 60% in 2024. For vets and veterinary nurses, this development of a ‘veterinary industry’ has led to a regulatory gap, with the regulatory burden still falling on individual professionals, whilst many non-veterinary practice owners making key decisions remain unregulated. This gap has helpfully been highlighted by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation into veterinary services for household pets. The CMA consider that veterinary business regulation would help to protect consumers and promote competition. Veterinary practice regulation would also help deliver minimum practice standards, something many of us have been asking to happen for a long time.
Also in the consultation is a section on the future governance of the professions, including regulation of allied professionals and businesses. The veterinary profession is unique in having a ‘Royal College that regulates’. This model brings some advantages but can also be challenging. The Defra proposals in the consultation have given two options of models for governance, one retaining a Royal College that regulates with greater clarity between regulator and professional leadership functions, and one where the leadership functions are completely removed from the regulator. There are pros and cons to each, including perceived conflicts of interest and costs, and what might be lost to the professions if there is full separation of functions. This has perhaps been the most challenging of the sections for veterinary professions to respond to, but we are sure that a sensible way forward can be found, even if it isn’t exactly one of the illustrative models.
With the Defra consultation now live, the veterinary profession’s thoughts are now focused on responding to it before the deadline of 25th March. It has been important for us to remember that the consultation is considering primary legislation, with much of the detail that will impact us in our daily lives as professionals likely to be in secondary legislation and updated RCVS Codes of Conduct. Whilst it’s important that the primary legislation is detailed enough, it also of course needs to be flexible and agile enough for potentially another sixty years. This is an exciting time, full of possibilities for the veterinary professions, and I’d urge anyone with an interest to reply to the consultation before the deadline.
You can find the consultation here or by searching "Defra VSA Consultation" into your search engine.
seen at 16:59, 18 March in Government Vets.