Veterinary Professionals

PetSavers in Practice

In the last 50 years, BSAVA PetSavers has invested more than £2.7million in over 300 research projects, all with real in-practice relevance for veterinary professionals like you. But we need your support to ensure we can keep funding vital research long into the future.

Vets and nurses like you: meet the researchers

PetSavers researchers are often practising vets and veterinary nurses, whose real-life experience of caring for small animals has led to patterns and hunches that soon become scientific hypotheses.

Dave Dickson was the first ever recipient of our Clinical Research Project grant jointly funded by the Veterinary Cardiovascular Society. Dave’s grant is allowing him to look at a population of dyspnoeic cats who present to first opinion practice, to see if vets can predict the condition using basic clinical information.

Dave said: “Because most Specialists work either in academia or private referral hospitals, and most research is conducted by Specialists, the research we get is heavily biased by the referral population. Whilst this doesn’t detract from excellent science our profession does, it means that the results of studies are not always applicable to a general practice setting. PetSavers allows vets in practice to design and run research based in practice, for vets in practice.”

If you’re interested in finding out more about how a PetSavers research grant could help you to pursue research with real impact for veterinary professionals and the small animals in your care, visit our ‘Apply for Funding’ page.

How you can help

PetSavers is one of few charities exclusively funding research into the health of our companion animals – that means there’s considerable demand for our grants. With fundraising support from veterinary teams around the UK, PetSavers can continue to fund vital clinical research that brings new and innovative diagnosis and treatment methods to practices like yours. You might be surprised how even small amounts of fundraising can make a huge difference:

£50 enables an hour’s use of a flow cytometer that sorts, counts and characterises different cell types.
£100 covers the cost of extracting DNA from 10 blood samples.
£250 provides bioinformatics analysis including access to specialist software

“As a practice we have been proud to support BSAVA PetSavers charity for a number of years. The charity supports research that has a direct benefit for our patients. We have had a collection box on the reception desk for a long time and clients regularly donate change equating to over £150 per year. Imagine if that was replicated in every practice in the UK!” – Jonathan Hart, Atherton Veterinary Centre

Fundraising

Fun, challenging, and entertaining fundraising activities bring your practice community together, whilst helping PetSavers to keep funding vital research into small animal care. Whether you’re collecting sponsorship or selling tickets, there are loads of ways for you and your practice team to get involved in fundraising.

Challenge the team to complete a sponsored event, like a 10k race, night hike or abseil.

Organise a charity dog walk or puppy socialisation event with your clients.

Host a raffle with local businesses and suppliers, or within your practice.

We have a range of free downloadable resources to make it easier for you to fundraise for us, from sponsorship forms to editable posters promoting raffles, bake sales and more. Our free BSAVA PetSavers Fundraising Pack also contains tips and tricks to support you! Click here for inspiration: Fundraising Tools.

Don’t forget that online fundraising tools make it quick and easy to collect donations or sponsorship. Simply set up your own JustGiving fundraising page to tell your fundraising story and start collecting donations from your supporters today.

If you haven’t been using a platform like JustGiving, and you’re ready to transfer the funds you’ve been raising to PetSavers, contact petsaversadmin@bsava.com to find out how to do this simply and securely.

We are registered with the Fundraising Regulator and are committed to complying with its Fundraising Promise. So you can be confident that our fundraising is legal, open, honest and respectful. If you have a complaint related to fundraising, please see our Complaints Procedure.

Volunteering

If you are already a BSAVA member, you can support us by volunteering with one of the BSAVA PetSavers’ committees. Our Management Committee and Grant Awarding Committee support our staff in the everyday running and organisation of PetSavers, and uphold the strong selection processes that lead to funding impactful research projects. To find out more, please contact our Volunteer Manager on volunteer@bsava.com.