Dr Peter Robinson

BVMS MRCVS

Candidate 10 of 10

Proposers: Heather Smith, Dr Neil Smith

Address and contact details

Flat 16 Cleveland Court, Kenilworth Road, Leamington Spa, Warwickshire CV32 6JA

T 01926 430 669

M 07591 957 532

E petrobins@yahoo.co.uk

W www.petrobins.co.uk

Candidate biography

I graduated from Glasgow Vet School 1971 and after a period in Veterinary Pathology, I moved into mixed practice in Lincolnshire.

In the early 1980s, I bought a traditional, 2-man, farm practice in Warwickshire; over the next 8 years, I transformed it into a 3-centre, 5-vet, modern mixed practice with a small animal/equine bias.

We were a VN training practice and I lectured to VN students at Matthew Bolton College, Birmingham. I was an Agricultural Training Board and Open University tutor.

The practice was sold in 1990 and after 2 years’ locum work, I moved into single-handed, small animal practice in Dubai, where I had to deal with every eventuality, as it arose.

Back in UK after 10 years, I worked in mixed, mainly small animal practice until November 2012. Since then, I have worked as a small animal locum involving both consulting and routine surgical work. In that role, I have been working with, and mentoring, both vet students and new graduates.

I am president of the Warwickshire Veterinary Clinical Club and I represented Warwickshire on BVA Council.

I served on RCVS Council from 2015 – 2019.

Candidate statement

I care passionately about our great profession which has been my life for the last 50 years. I am saddened that our members are now so stressed with day-to-day work dealing with clients and fear of the RCVS disciplinary system that they leave the profession after only a few years in practice. Some radical changes are needed to get the profession back on track to becoming an enjoyable career that retains our members for the long term. What it needs is: -

• Simplification
• Restructuring
• Maintaining our high professional standards

Simplification:

• Simplify the disciplinary process to weed out the real cases of Professional Misconduct, that bring the profession into disrepute, more quickly and once that is done leave ‘negligence’ complaints to members professional indemnity insurers.
• Simplify the code of conduct notes for guidance so members can practice professionally without fear of breaking the ‘rules’.
   

Restructuring:

• Explore ways to change the way we educate and train Veterinary Surgeons by introducing apprentice degrees.
• Apprentices would become part of the work force on day one.
• The cost of training would be reduced; apprentices would be paid.
• Veterinary Surgeons would receive generalist training in the practice environment, where they will eventually be employed.
• The ‘no-mans-land’ between university and practice would be eliminated.
• Introduce Limited Licensure; train small animal vets for small animal practice, farm vets for farm practice, equine vets for equine practice and abandon ‘Omni competence’ for all.
   

Maintaining Standards:

• Introduce quality assured practice standards for all practices.
• Ensure that corporate practices are held accountable for upholding standards.
• Ensure that all the responsibility is not carried only by the individual vet.

Questions from the professions and the candidate's answers 

• What are the candidates’ thoughts and suggested solutions for the shortage of clinical veterinary surgeons in the UK?

There is no ‘quick fix’; we need radical change. We must change the way we educate and train veterinary surgeons.

• Explore apprentice degrees where the student works in practice as part of the workforce and is ‘released’ to attend Vet School.
• Recognise General Practice as a specialty and promote it as a meaningful, rewarding career
• Re-focus on the client, the patient, continuity of care and Out of Hours provision.
• Teach ‘Generalism’.
• Stop trying to produce ‘omni competent’ vets.
• Introduce limited licensure.

• As an RCVS Council candidate, what ideas would you encourage the RCVS to explore to make the RCVS Code of Conduct more accessible to vets?
• Simplify the Code.
• Shorten the ‘Notes for Guidance’.
• Encourage vets to make their own professional decisions and not just ‘follow the rules’.