Examination of Witnesses (Questions 150-159)
MR NICK
BLAYNEY AND
MS NICKY
PAULL
3 MARCH 2008
Chairman: We move to the British Veterinary
Association and we welcome Nick Blayney, their president, and
Nicky Paull, their president-elect. I should make clear to the
audience and those who read our proceedings that a number of us
have in the past accepted the post of an honorary associate of
the British Veterinary Association. It is an unremunerated post
but nonetheless we like people to know where we are coming from
occasionally in our lines of questioning. We get a free copy of
the magazine. It is very good and I always read the leader. I
am afraid in the rest of it the pictures are too lurid and I do
not understand about past page three.
Q150 Dr Strang: Why does the BVA
believe that a voluntary practice standards scheme is preferable
to a mandatory scheme?
Mr Blayney: We believe there are
practical difficulties in setting up a mandatory scheme which,
we believe, is too equipment based and not enough outcome based.
It would be useful to fill in on the background. The profession
is very much in favour of practice standards. The original scheme
did not come from the Royal College. It came from the work of
the British Small Animal Veterinary Association which is one of
our major divisions. They developed and pioneered the idea of
practice standards through the nineties and latterly the Royal
College took on the mantle and, more recently still, indicated
that they had a desire to make the scheme mandatory.
Q151 Dr Strang: Do you believe that
the Royal College has the support of the profession for its practice
standards scheme?
Mr Blayney: We can measure the
amount of support it has because, in the time that it has been
there, about 50% of premises are on the scheme. That is not to
say that the other 50% fall short of the standards but simply
that 50% have chosen to go into the scheme. The figure might be
slightly skewed positively by the fact that, if you are a veterinary
nurse training practice—and many practices are—the
scheme is such that you would choose to join the practice standards
scheme as it stands at the moment. When the scheme first came
into being under the Royal College aegis, there was a rapid migration
into the scheme of all the teaching practices. Since then, the
flow into the scheme has pretty much dried up and I believe it
has sat at about 50% for some considerable time—that is
to say, certainly in excess of a year.
Ms Paull: You have to bear in
mind that quite a lot of the current practice standards cover
areas that are already covered by other law. For instance, employment
and health and safety law and so on. Therefore, some practices
feel because they are addressing those standards quite adequately
directly with their law enforcement agencies the need to go down
the route of practice standards as provided by the Royal College
currently, cost-wise, they do not see as a benefit to the practice
or to their clients necessarily.
Q152 Dr Strang: Presumably you have
had some discussions with the RCVS on this issue?
Mr Blayney: We have and it is
recognised that there is a disagreement between us on where we
see the scheme going. We have proposed, since the profession embraces
the idea that there should be some bench marking, some aspirational
standards, for the way practices are structured, the idea of a
guide to practice standards to sit parallel with the guide to
professional conduct, which is the document by which the Royal
College judges our behaviour.
Q153 Dr Strang: To what extent is
the BVA concerned by the growth of practices owned by non-veterinary
people?
Mr Blayney: We are not concerned
about it in the same way that the Royal College appears to be.
There are a number of players who have come into the market place
now and it is now perfectly legal for practices to be owned by
non-veterinary surgeons. We have sought to inquire after this.
There is no evidence to suggest that the nature or the pattern
of the complaints has changed in any way because of ownership
by a non-veterinary surgeon. The ethical pressures upon an individual
veterinary surgeon remain the same whether they are employed by
another vet or by a non-veterinary person and the ethical pressures
come from above, from your employer, and in instructions they
may wish to give you, but also from your client as well. The veterinary
surgeon is in a position of making ethical judgments on both counts.
Q154 Dr Strang: What you are saying
is you are not concerned that there might be financial pressures
from such an ownership, bringing undue pressure to bear on the
vet to compromise his standards?
Mr Blayney: We do not believe
there are. We have considered it. There is certainly no evidence
to support the view and indeed some of the larger, non-veterinary
owned corporate practices that have grown up have probably set
extremely promising standards.
Q155 Dr Strang: Are a large number
of practices now sponsored by pet food manufacturers?
Mr Blayney: There are no practices
sponsored by pet food manufacturers.
Q156 David Taylor: You represent
about half of the vets that are registered, do you not, in this
country?
Mr Blayney: Slightly more than
half, but yes.
Q157 David Taylor: Why do the other
half not find themselves in membership?
Mr Blayney: The level of professional
membership is about the same as it is with equivalent organisations
in other professions. The BDA has about the same level of membership.
We have a rather strange conglomeration of professional organisations.
We have the BVA which was the original one. We have the Society
of Practising Veterinary Surgeons, BSAVA, BCVA for cattle and
BEVA for vets. There are vets who are members of each one of those
but they are not members of BVA. Because those divisions are divisional
members of the BVA, we can notionally claim a considerably larger
membership than our immediate, direct membership.
Q158 David Taylor: Whilst no pet
food manufacturers own any practices, what proportion of the income
of some of your practices would you say is derived from the promotion
or sale of pet food?
Mr Blayney: I cannot give you
that statistic off the top of my head but I am sure we would be
glad to research it and provide it to you at a later date.
Q159 David Taylor: Would it be a
substantial amount in some practices?
Mr Blayney: I am not prepared
to answer that without some data in front of me, other than to
say that most veterinary practices do sell pet food. The reason
they do it is because veterinary practices supply goods and services
to their clients, goods and services that presumably they have
judged to be useful to their clients. The goods we supply include
a lot of medications and food. There is no doubt that the arrival
of commercial pet foods has improved the quality of life and wellbeing
of a lot of pets because it provides well prepared, scientifically
based, nutritionally acceptable diets.
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