Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-105)
MR BOB
MOORE, PROFESSOR
SHEILA CRISPIN,
MS ANDREA
JEFFERY AND
MS JANE
HERN
18 FEBRUARY 2008
Q100 David Taylor: Against professional
standards, against expectations, against whether or not you are
trying to prevent ill health or merely treat it.
Ms Hern: But we do not prescribe
how—
Q101 David Taylor: You should be
part of it though, surely?
Ms Hern: We do not tell veterinary
surgeons how they should exercise their professional judgment.
Q102 David Taylor: Ah, you say you
are just packing up; you are just walking by on the other side?
Ms Hern: No, but they have to
exercise their professional judgment in relation to the animal
and the client in front of them, and we do not go down the road
of being prescriptive in all of those contexts.
Q103 Chairman: Can I ask you one
last question, very briefly? Continuous professional development:
have you costed it out, and would you apply it to all the professions
that we have so far talked about under the veterinary umbrella?
Professor Crispin: For someone
who has dealt all my life with education, I think this falls to
me as well. There would be no extra costs involved. It really
is market forces here. There is a lot of competition amongst the
people who supply this continuing professional development, on
a competitive basis. There would be no extra cost. We do spend
a lot of money already on that, and a good practice will always
build it into their practice plan, so that their veterinary surgeons
have the CPD paid for.
Q104 Chairman: If you made it a legal
requirement. It would—
Professor Crispin: It would make
absolutely no difference financially.
Q105 Chairman: Applying that same
dictum to other professions—farriers to nurses, to everybody
else—still no difference?
Ms Jeffrey: We have already introduced
it. In September, when we went down the self-regulatory route
we introduced continuous professional development with team nurses,
and they are finding it—and it is not too expensive. We
have not had any complaints about it being expensive.
Mr Moore: Continuous professional
development does not necessarily have to be attendance at courses
away. There is, written into the requirements that it can be distance
learning, self-reading and so on. A very small proportion has
to be attendance at courses, so it is not all expensive and can
be tailored to suit the individual.
Chairman: Thank you very much for your
written and oral evidence, and thank you for briefing the Committee.
We shall consider carefully what you have said. As I said at the
beginning, if there is anything further you want to put in writing,
please do. We look forward to the statistics on complaints that
we asked for earlier.
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