RCVS Awarding Body responds to Ofqual monitoring report

As a nationally-accredited awarding body, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons is subject to post-accreditation quality audit by the Office of the Qualifications and Examinations Regulator (Ofqual) and other national regulatory authorities.

In the interests of openness and transparency, it is publishing the Regulator’s report of its latest audit in addition to its availability on the Ofqual website.

The most recent post-accreditation monitoring event took place in September and October of 2007. During this period, the audit team visited RCVS headquarters at Belgravia House and also travelled to several of its Veterinary Nursing Approved Centres (VNACs) and some of their affiliated training practices.

The VNACs sampled in this way represented both large and small operations and the private as well as the public training sector.

Whilst the RCVS Awarding Body undertakes regular internal and independent audit activities, it is always very valuable to receive objective feedback from the Regulator, according to RCVS Head of Veterinary Nursing Libby Earle.

"We found the monitoring process to be a fair, supportive and collaborative one and we believe the findings are a measure of our success in developing robust quality systems since the RCVS’s initial accreditation as an awarding body ten years ago.

"Whilst we have some conditions and recommendations to address, the audit demonstrated that our operation has made very considerable progress since we were last monitored in 2000.

"We have already addressed most of the conditions and recommendations made in the report and have a short-timescale action plan to resolve the remainder," she said.