FAQs

When you begin your veterinary nurse training, you are registered by the RCVS at an Approved Centre. If you change employment and move to another practice, it is very important that both the receiving Centre and the RCVS are informed of the change immediately, using the VN Student Change of Details form.

Please ensure that you get this form signed by both your Practice Principal and Head of Centre. You should then either post it to the RCVS or scan and email the form to [email protected]. Failure to notify the RCVS of changes to your employment and/or approved centre may jeopardise your VN training.

Vets, who’re planning to return to work after a break from veterinary practice, may wish to use the PDP section of the online Professional Development Record in order to benchmark and track ‘Year One competences’. Once you return to practice, you should not undertake any procedures for which you are not competent.

Whether you’re a vet or VN, you may find it useful to undertake a ‘return to practice’ refresher course before you start back at work and/or arrange for some supervision when you start back until you feel confident to work unsupervised.

Veterinary nurses who are returning to the Register after a period of 5 years absence or more will need to undertake a Period of Supervised Practice (PSP) before being able to apply to restore to the Register.

It can take up to 30 days for a refund to be processed during the annual renewal process.

No; if you take smaller quantities of (stock) medicines to the charity/business premises, the premises are unlikely to be considered veterinary practice premises (unless 17a or b is applicable), but you will need to keep a record of the premises (see Chapter 4 of the supporting guidance to the Code of Professional Conduct: Veterinary medicines and FAQs, 'Our practice is changing ownership, do we need to re-register the premises?' and 'What is the record requirement' below).

You will need to participate in the VetGDP if you are in a Government veterinary role, working for the food standards agency, working as an OV, working for the APHA, in animal welfare, as an inspector, in veterinary audit, meat hygiene inspectors, policy writers, epidemiologists, research roles, and so on.

Please look at the EPAs and discuss this with your employer before you apply for an exemption. If you click on this option, it will take you to another screen to give your new job title and briefly describe your role. Your exemption will be confirmed by the RCVS by e-mail, and they may ask your for further detail. You may later sign up for the VetGDP when you begin a clinical role, just amend your statement on this page.

If you need assistance in finding EPAs to suit your role, or in crafting your own EPA to suit your role, then please do contact us at [email protected].

I am an Official Veterinarian or TB tester
Whilst perhaps small, your role does have a clinical aspect. Here are some suggestions of which EPAs may be appropriate for your role. It is not an exhaustive list. Relevant EPAs will differ depending on role and should be discussed with the employer.

• EPA 11 – Welfare assessments of animals arriving for slaughter are a common scenario to which this could[JST1]  be applied
• EPA 12 – A veterinary risk assessment could be performed in a number of different aspects of the role relating to food safety/public health/animal welfare
• EPA 13 – Audit activities in terms of the daily supervision of a factory are a requirement of the role. The OV may not be performing the annual FSA audit of the whole premises but their activities monitoring compliance through supervision contribute to that process
• EPA 14 - OV may be asked to do export activities as part of their role
• EPA 9 - OV would be expected to perform a Post Mortem Investigation following sudden deaths at an abattoir and may be expected to collect samples. This would only require a minor adjustment since collection of samples would only be required in certain cases.

• EPA 10 - An OV is likely to be involved in, even if not lead epidemiological investigations of diseases which are identified at an abattoir. They have an important front-line role to play in identifying notifiable diseases. Beyond their initial training, they are more likely to take a leading role.

No, graduate vets already on the PDP will continue, and it will not be possible to switch.

If your VetGDP Adviser isn’t on the drop-down list, please ask them to make sure that they have set up a relationship in their RCVS My Account, with the same practice as you and have made their own VetGDP declaration.

If the practice is not in the drop-down list, please ask them to make sure that they have completed the practice declaration in the practice My Account. If they need help in accessing the practice My Account, they should contact [email protected] with the practice postcode.

You can find step by step guides for each party here.

Yes. If you are listed on the RCVS Register as a practising member, regardless of whether you are practising overseas or in the UK, you are expected to comply with the minimum CPD requirement of 35 hours per year.

You may include CPD undertaken abroad, but you should ensure that your description of this, and the hours involved, are clearly recorded in English so that the details of what you have done are transparent to, and understood by, the RCVS and others with an interest in your CPD record, such as prospective and current employers.

The RCVS does not accredit or otherwise ‘kitemark’ activities designed and marketed by training providers as CPD, as it considers that members should identify and plan their CPD to meet their own individual skills and knowledge developmental needs as practising vets. It is the responsibility of each vet to record the number of hours spent on their CPD activities. CPD providers may find it useful to benchmark their courses against the modules in the Certificate in Advanced Veterinary Practice and make it clear to those who attend whether the course is intended to cover some or all of the learning objectives of the CertAVP modules.

Yes, we ask vets who have been out of practice for 5 years or longer to take part in VetGDP. You will be notified when you apply to return to the Register.

Please note there will be an opportunity for vets in certain circumstances to apply for an exemption from VetGDP, which will be determined on a case-by-case basis. This may include having worked in veterinary practice overseas for the period off the Register.