Now the mammoth updating task has finished and the new RCVS Practice Standards have been launched at Congress, the Practice Standards Group is moving on to look at a possible Referral Practice Standard to be included in the Practice Standards Scheme

The RCVS Practice Standards Group (PSG) consists of representatives from BVA, SPVS, VPMA, BCVA, BEVA, BVHA, BVNA & VN council & of course BSAVA. BSAVA’s representative on this committee is Pam Mosedale, who is also a PSS Inspector, so has first hand knowledge of how the Scheme works. Pam is very keen to get feedback from BSAVA members as well as from the association’s officers. Decisions of PSG are formed when all the representatives return from their relevant organisations with the opinions of its members.

So this is yet another area where BSAVA are actively involved in influencing the future of the profession.

Creating a Referral Practice Standard is quite a complex area – suggestions have included; a modular system with accreditation for a subject area (e.g. Dermatology) added to existing PSS accreditation , General Practice (Tier 2), or a stand alone multi-disciplinary Referral Veterinary Hospital (Tier 3 +).

Questions

Qualifications: What should qualifications should staff in referral practice have – Diploma or Certificate. How many Diploma/Certificate holders in each subject would a practice need to be a referral service within the scheme?

Clinical Audit: Should an accredited referral practice be able to produce clinical audit figures for results of the procedures carried out at the centre?

New Tier: In the future, could there be, for instance, a Veterinary Hospital (Orthopaedic) Tier, which would have extra requirements for equipment and operating facilities, but not have some of the veterinary hospital requirements, such as dentistry?

Respond to the consultation
Any comments to companion@bsava.com by 27 September and this will be forwarded on to our representative Pam Mosedale. You may think this is too complex an area for PSS, but this affects all of us, if not in referral practice, then as users of referral services. So please have your say now, at this early consultation stage, because your opinion will count.