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Mental Health Awareness Week 2026 – the importance of evidence-based action

Next week (11 to 17 May) marks Mental Health Awareness Week, an annual campaign run by the Mental Health Foundation, which highlights the importance of good mental health, challenges stigma and promotes practical actions people can take to support their own wellbeing. 

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Mind Matters

The theme for this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week is ‘action’ – focusing on how we can prevent people from becoming unwell in the first place to enable them to thrive.

At the RCVS we take mental health seriously, and our Mind Matters Team work hard to improve the mental health of the veterinary community across all settings and career stages, through facilitating accessible, high-quality and evidence-based mental health projects, research, and content.

The team has done a lot to raise awareness of the mental health issues impacting the professions but is now focusing increasingly on action. This includes creating and providing evidence-based training and resources, promoting help seeking behaviours for individuals, and providing employers, managers and leaders with the tools to make systemic change within their organisations.

RCVS Mind Matters Mental Health Research Symposium 

Last year we ran our fifth RCVS Mind Matters Mental Health Research Symposium, which brought together researchers, clinicians, educators and veterinary professionals to share the latest insights into mental health and wellbeing across the professions.

Held on World Mental Health Day on Friday 10 October 2025, the symposium marked a significant milestone – ten years of our Mind Matters Initiative. The event showcased the breadth of current research shaping our understanding of mental health in the veterinary world, and inspiring evidence-based action from both within and outside the College.

We have now created a report capturing the key themes, research findings and discussions from the day, which covered topics on education and training, workplace culture, substance use, neurodiversity and suicide prevention. Accompanying videos from the day are also available.

RCVS Senior Diversity and Inclusion Officer Lloyd Emeka

Explore current research and discover how it’s being turned into practical action to improve veterinary mental health.

Read the symposium report and watch the recordings

Turning research into action 

While awareness raising plays a vital role in informing and educating people about the existing mental health issues faced by veterinary professionals, it is what we do with that information that really matters and makes lasting change.

All Mind Matters resources, CPD and events are evidence-based – designed to support veterinary professionals to develop skills that have been proven to work effectively which can then be applied to life and work. That’s why research plays such an important role in everything that we do – so we can be sure that the actions being taken will make a tangible difference.

Most recently, we’ve been taking action by introducing a new standard to our Practice Standards Scheme (PSS) – requiring all PSS accredited practices to implement a practice-specific suicide prevention plan. Working with external suicide prevention experts, our Mind Matters and PSS teams have produced three resources that are aligned with the new British standard (BS30480) on suicide prevention in the workplace. These evidence-based resources are designed to ensure that putting these plans in place doesn’t just act as a tick box exercise, but has the desired impacts by helping workplaces to make meaningful change and help prevent incidences of suicide in the veterinary community. 

Find out more and discover our suicide prevention in the veterinary workplace resources.

Visit our suicide prevention page
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Take action

Keep up to date on everything Mind Matters – get involved and take action for yourself and your teams. 

Visit the Mind Matters page

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