Guest blog by Barney Dean, an EBVS® European Specialist and RCVS-Recognised Specialist in Small Animal Surgery. For the last few months, he has been trying to balance launching his new bespoke and flexible surgical CPD company Chiron Vet CPD, with the birth of his first baby Posy on Christmas Day 2022.
Flexible working, as outlined on the UK Government website, is “a way of working that suits an employee’s needs”. Citizens Advice describe it as “any type of working pattern which is different from your existing one”. They explain that this might involve working from home, job sharing, part-time working, term-time work, or compressed hours, amongst many other options.
The RCVS Workforce Summit 2021 reviewed survey responses regarding the topic of recruitment, retention and return in the veterinary professions as part of their ongoing response to UK veterinary workforce challenges. Amongst the reasons given by vets for intention to leave the profession, lack of flexibility in hours was listed by 33% of respondents, poor work-life balance was stated by 60%, and long or antisocial hours by 48%. These can be directly attributed to a lack of flexible working opportunities in the workplace, but in addition to this, other reasons are listed that could indirectly be attributed to lack of flexibility, including chronic stress in 49% of respondents, and care of dependants or to have a family in 10%. The results of Veterinary Woman’s own 2021 readership survey showed a clear call for increasing flexible working opportunities to help break down barriers for women in the veterinary industry. And when you consider that women made up 77% of the new UK-practising vet registrations in 2021, it is vitally important that these expectations are met.
The RCVS Workforce Summit 2021 also noted that between 2015 and 2019 there was an annual net gain of between 1123 and 1360 UK-practising veterinary surgeons. In 2020 this fell to 449 and fell again to just 268 in 2021. This fall was in the face of over five million new UK pet acquisitions during the COVID-19 Pandemic. These animals aren’t going away any time soon, and neither are their health requirements. Something needs to change to address these issues and stem this exodus (‘vexodus’?) of UK-practising Vets.
Pandemic adaptations
Flexible working has undoubtedly helped the general UK workforce adapt to changing attitudes to work-life balance, increased awareness of protection of wellbeing, and the huge logistical challenges imposed by the immeasurable impact that the double-whammy of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic has thrust upon it. In the 12 months before the pandemic, 12% of the UK workforce had worked from home for at least once day during the previous week, and 5% worked from home exclusively. These numbers increased to 11% and 38% respectively during the pandemic, and then reduced to 22% and 13% in September 2022.
According to the Office of National Statistics, 47% of those who worked from home during the pandemic reported improved well-being, and 78% reported an improved work-life balance. While seemingly positive, these data need to be interpreted with caution – can we reliably extrapolate quality of life data to everyday life from a (hopefully) once in a lifetime cataclysmic socioeconomic event? Additionally, not all responses were as positive, with some reports of increased feelings of isolation, sometimes lower productivity, and blurring of work-life boundaries. Even with this in mind, the potential for positive change is clear to be seen.
This is all well and good for those working in the information and communication, technical and administrative industries that the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology list as those that benefited the most from flexible work patterns. But how does this fit into the veterinary industry, an industry littered with regulation and bureaucracy, where most of its workers have historically been tethered in some way to the need to physically examine, diagnose and treat their patients? After all, it’s not possible to rectal that cow, block that horse’s fetlock, or de-rotate that dog’s stomach from behind a computer screen at home.
The case for flexible veterinary services
But we as an industry are historically traditional and sentimental. We still often hear vets talking fondly of a time when the local independent vet practice was an integrated cornerstone of the local community, with clinical staff ready, able and willing to improvise, make-do, and get the job done on a shoestring. But societal attitudes to animals and their care are changing, particularly in small animal practice. Many owners (but importantly, not all) expect gold standard care and are willing to spend a lot of money, whether through savings, credit or insurance, in order to get it. Which is perfectly fine. But there are still of course plenty of owners who either don’t have the finances or simply don’t have an interest in pursuing potentially expensive diagnostics and treatment. And that’s perfectly fine too. Neither subset of owners should be shamed for that, nor should the vets who cater to either of those subsets be shamed.
So, we have a growing pool of owners that expect a wider-than-ever range of services, a workforce that craves flexibility, and a governing body that many will argue historically has not been able to keep pace with the changing role of vets in a rapidly changing society. If owners’ expectations are wide-ranging, the services available to them should be flexible, and so the way we work, either between or within practices, should be flexible to match.
Just a matter of weeks ago the RCVS Council announced that they are due to update their interpretation of ‘under care’ guidance. This, they claim, was following a “wide-ranging, lengthy and comprehensive review” aimed at “ensuring that it protects animal health and welfare and complies with legislation”. Perhaps most significantly, this update releases many of the shackles that tie a lot of our work to an in-person, established vet-client-patient relationship. That is, it is now up to the primary veterinary surgeon to determine if their prior involvement in an animal’s care is sufficient to consider them ‘under their care’, and therefore whether a physical examination of an animal is required to provide treatment recommendations. The British Veterinary Association have called it a “watershed moment”.
Opportunities to innovate
The response from the industry as a whole has been cautious though. Some of the biggest worries, quite understandably, are that by taking away the need for an up-to-date physical examination in every case, there is scope to miss pathologies that could impact patient welfare, or it could create a race-to-the-bottom amongst the inevitable boom in remote prescribing services. The Royal College of General Practitioners actively encourages a hybrid in-person and remote consulting model. Clearly human medics have the benefit or working with largely verbal patients, but they will also be at risk of missing diagnoses. If this is an accepted risk in the human medical world, should we be more open to it in the veterinary medical world? While there is potential for negative change in the industry, there is so much opportunity for positive change. And we need to focus on these positive opportunities. It’s simply not sustainable to fight for change, and then resist or resent these opportunities when they are handed to us.
This change in ‘under care’ guidance pairs well with Ambition four of the RCVS’s 2022 Workforce Action Plan which summarises that “we need to develop processes to support the professions to test and trial new ways of working, that enable efficiencies, enjoyment and more positive interactions with clients” and are told that to achieve this we need to explore smarter working, encourage and boldly react to innovation, challenge culture, and lead by example. Is this guidance ambiguous? Yes. But does this make it flexible? Certainly.
The veterinary industry has been derestricted and is being actively encouraged by its governing body to seek positive change and innovation. Could a colleague perform triage video consults from home for one day per week? Could your nursing team take on more Schedule 3 roles in the practice? Could you revamp your new graduate rotas to provide more satisfying training and support?
We have craved flexibility in our industry for years, and no doubt our colleagues of the future will expect it. Yes, we should exercise caution, but now we have an incredible opportunity for all members of the veterinary industry to speak openly and freely and collaborate on all levels to explore how it can be brought up to date in a post-pandemic society.
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