Page 15 - Winter 20-21

RCVS Proposed Legislative Reforms
By Ilse Pedler, UK
A subject that has been occupying the BAHVS committee for the last month or two, has been the proposals by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) to reform the Veterinary Surgeons Act (VSA) in the UK. There have been suggestions to do this since 2008 and a Legislative Working Party (LWP) was established in 2017 with a mission, to examine the VSA and make proposals for reform to ensure that the RCVS can be a modern and efficient regulator.
The LWP highlighted a number of areas for reform and recommendations have been made. These have now been put out to Veterinary surgeons, nurses and members of the public in a consultative stage. This stage closes at 5pm on Wednesday 21st April 2021.
After examining the recommendations, we believe there are several that could have the potential to be disadvantageous for homeopaths and other complementary therapists in the future. There are several broad areas; -
1. Assuring practice standards
The proposal is to make it mandatory to be part of the Practice Standards Scheme, the aim being to give greater public reassurance. While at first glance this may appear welcome, in reality smaller practices and sole practitioners will be affected by the higher proportionate costs and the time taken with extra paperwork. Connected to this was also the proposal to allow the RCVS powers of entry to practices. This certainly sounds heavy handed in the extreme and where people practice from home it would be doubly distressing. There was another
proposal to issue more improvement notices, allowing an individual time to put measures in place rather than just being referred to the DC, which sounds like it could be a positive step however.
2. Fitness to practice
There were proposals here to widen the grounds for investigation of an individual and the phrase used was to assess where a practitioner might pose a risk to animals, the public or the public interest for other reasons. The immediate reaction is to ask, who is responsible for determining the risk? If there is someone on the disciplinary panel who is anti CAM for example, they may see the individual as a risk as they don’t agree with the particular therapy. How will the RCVS ensure non-bias in these cases? Unfortunately, CAM has been the target of a small but vocal group of individuals in the past including council members and this has reduced our confidence in being able to get a fair and unbiased hearing in such cases.
3. Reducing the standard of proof
The recommendation is to reduce the standard of proof in disciplinary cases from beyond reasonable doubt to on the balance of probabilities. The concern would be that this would make it easier to prosecute a vet. Another proposal is to reduce the number of people on the disciplinary panel which again raises the question of fairness and the concern about an individual biased against CAM exerting unequal power in a smaller panel and swaying opinion to suit
their views. It would seem at the very least CAM practitioners should have
some safeguards against this.
There are several
other proposals including
one to regulate paraprofessionals more strictly.
I listened to a BVA webinar on the proposals and was reassured to a certain extent, that the BVA also had reservations about several of the recommendations, including the one about powers of entry. There was also a lot of debate about lowering the standard of proof in disciplinary cases. They urged all BVA members to contact their local rep with their concerns as soon as possible. We have certainly found in the past that this route has been productive so I would encourage anyone who is a BVA member to do so.
The consultation can be accessed via the RCVS website. https://www.rcvs.org.uk/news-and-views/our- consultations/legislation-working-party-report/
It’s a lengthy document with comments boxes after every proposal but you don’t have to write in all of them. I would encourage you all to take a look and make your comments. It is up to each individual to have a voice in this decision-making process. We need to protect our futures.
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