The Practice Standards Scheme (PSS) awards

Awards assessments are behaviours-based. Your practice must demonstrate that these behaviours have been in place for at least three months before the assessment.

Your practice can achieve ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ within each award.

The following documents give a detailed breakdown of the modules and requirements for each award.

• PSS Small Animal Modules and Awards - Version 3.3
• PSS Equine Modules and Awards - Version 3.4
• PSS Farm Animal Modules and Awards - Version 3.3 

This award is given to practices offering high quality services to farmers. Areas recognised include:

• Further qualifications and training
• Biosecurity
• Protocols for the diagnosis of common conditions
• Safe surgery on the farm
• Using medicines appropriately.

Required modules for this award

• Infection Control and Biosecurity
• Farm Consultation
• Pain Management and Welfare
• Surgery
• Medicines 

This award is given to practices offering outstanding services away from their premises. Areas recognised include:

• Further qualifications and training
• Recognising and treating pain appropriately
• Maintaining hygiene and safety in practice vehicles

Required modules for this award  

• Infection Control and Biosecurity
• Out-patients (Ambulatory)
• Pain Management and Welfare
• Dentistry
• Medicines

This award is given to practices demonstrating high levels of care for their clients. There is only one module, Client Experience. This module includes the practical and behavioural steps that practices can take to improve client service. 

Required modules for this award

• Client Experience

This award is given to practices providing excellent diagnostic services. Areas recognised include:

• Radiography
• Ultrasound
• Practice training and safety measures

This award includes a module on Laboratory and Clinical Pathology. This module assesses the practice’s use of laboratory technology to carry out tests and promptly report results.

Required modules for this award  

• Diagnostic Imaging
• Laboratory and Clinical Pathology

This award recognises practices that excel in caring for animals in need of urgent care.

To get this award, practices must:

• have staff trained in:
  • emergency care,
  • nursing,
  • recognising pain,
• have practice staff attending to patients 24 hours a day,
• have resources and equipment for emergency diagnostics and treatment,
• provide a range of pain relief.

Required modules for this award

• Emergency and Critical Care
• In-patients
• Nursing
• Pain Management and welfare

This award is given to practices who provide an excellent service to in-patients. It assesses:

• facilities,
• nursing care for hospitalised animals,
• how the practice maintains a clean surgical environment.

This award also highlights the vital role of vet nurses in caring for hospitalised patients.

Required modules for this award  

• Anaesthesia
• Dentistry
• Infection Control and Biosecurity
• In-patients
• Nursing
• Pain Management and Welfare
• Surgery

This award recognises practices that offer high quality first-opinion services to clients and patients. This includes:

• further qualifications and training,
• maintenance of practice hygiene,
• ensuring high standards of nursing care.

Required modules for this award

• Infection Control and Biosecurity
• Nursing
• Out-patients (first opinion)
• Pain Management and Welfare

This award recognises practices who excel at looking after the welfare and safety of their team. Practices must demonstrate that:

• they have systems in place to ensure the welfare and safety of team members,
• their knowledge and training is kept up-to-date.

It also recognises the practice team’s dedication to areas that impact the level of service offered to clients and patients, such as:

• clinical governance,
• practice hygiene,
• record-keeping,
• prescription and medicines services.

Required modules for this award

• Clinical Governance
• Infection Control and Biosecurity
• Medicines
• Practice Team

The Environmental Sustainability Award is our newest PSS Award, introduced in July 2022.

We introduced this award in response to widespread interest in how the sector can address the climate crisis.

Practices must demonstrate that they have embedded behaviours and initiatives to meet their sustainability goals. This includes:

• measuring and reducing waste,
• consolidating medicines orders and minimising drug wastage,
• calculating the practice’s carbon footprint and setting reduction targets.

Required modules for this award

• Environmental Sustainability
• Relevant requirements in:
  • Diagnostic Imaging
  • Medicines
  • Practice Team

• You can apply for PSS awards via Stanley.
• Under each species type there is an Awards section. Expand it to reveal a list of available awards for that species type.
• Because awards are species-specific, you’ll need to select awards for each species you wish to be assessed for.
• Click on the green ‘Apply for this Award’ button next to the award. The button will turn grey. This allows the assessor to see which awards you want to be assessed for.
• Awards are achieved by individual premises. If there are multiple premises in your group, you’ll need to select awards for each premises that you want to be assessed.
• Each award can be opened to reveal which modules it comprises. The progress bar charts help you see which level of awards you are likely to achieve.

The PSS awards assessment process is similar to the general PSS assessment process.

Accept an assessor and arrange a date for assessment

Once you’ve applied for an award, we’ll email you within a week to confirm that we’ve got your application. We will also confirm your availability for the assessment, which will be in a minimum of three months' time. 

Within a month, we’ll contact you with details of your proposed assessor, who you will be able to accept or decline.

Once you have accepted the assessor, they will contact you to arrange a date for the assessment.

Prepare your pre-assessment information

Whilst preparing for the assessment, please use Stanley to mark the awards requirements as 'confirmed' once they are in place. This will allow you to monitor your progress and projected award result.

There are pre-assessment documents that you will need to upload to Stanley. These should be uploaded one month ahead of the assessment visit.

The assessor may leave comments on the uploaded documentation any time in the month before the visit.

Assessment day

On the day of the visit, the provisional result of the assessment will be confirmed by the assessor. 

Get your report and pay the fee

We will send you confirmation of the awards outcome and the official awards report by email four to six weeks after the visit. You'll get the awards result and some feedback on Stanley. We'll send the invoice for the awards assessment fee to you at this time.

Get your award

Once you’ve paid your assessment fee, we’ll send you the certificate and logos. We’ll also update Find A Vet to reflect your award status.

If you have any questions about the awards process, please contact the PSS team by emailing [email protected] or calling 020 7202 0767.