BBC News - Nursing and Midwifery regulations

Re: BBC News - Nursing and Midwifery regulations

Mark Hedberg — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 21:20:15 GMT

There isn't a huge difference presently. Everyone who's taking an RCVS-approved course is going to a college 1 or 2 days a week, and working in a veterinary practice for the rest of the week. They can be either employed by the practice, or an unpaid work placement. Their course content doesn't change; their practical work doesn't change. Every RVN has passed the OSCE exams, their theory papers, and completed their NPL (or CSL if your college is with Central Qualifications.)

There are some students who are offered a place on the condition they find a placement. (We try our best to find placements for our own students, but only some 1700 of the approximately 4,000 vet practices are TPs, so by September there are a lot of phones ringing in a lot of practices!)

There are a lot of colleges offering the nursing course, but that's perfectly natural - someone in Cornwall isn't going to come up to us in Huntingdon! :)

Re: BBC News - Nursing and Midwifery regulations

Nick Shackleton — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 20:31:48 GMT

All registered healthcare professionals ie physiotherapists, radiographers, occupational therapists etc.. All are registered with the healthcare professionals council HCPC and have to renew registration every two years and call be called to show evidence of CPD. Also then should be registered with a governing body ie Society or Radiographers. In the future even healthcare assistants, Assistant Practitoners will need to be registered with a governing body and registered and supply evidence of CPD. This is all good news. I'm currently in the process of entering my name of a voluntary register. Much like veterinary nursing. Human healthcare professionals are given very little time to under take CPD. We all have yearly Personal Development Reviews, which is meant to be a time where yearly CPD should be discussed and ensured evidence is available for last years objectives. I agree that the title veterinary nurse should be protected, but this is difficult to do and enforce as there will be the old school vet practices out there who will continue to employ those who are not qualified and give them on the job training and call them veterinary nurses. I'm slightly worried by the number of courses out there. When I trained there was only one route to qualify as a veterinary nurse, which personally I think is good. It's so confusing now. And there seems to be a great number of student nurses who have places of courses but no placements. Personally think this a bit worrying.

Re: BBC News - Nursing and Midwifery regulations

Charley83 — Fri, 06 Sep 2013 19:54:25 GMT

AS a former human nurse it is obviously the nurse's responsible to keep up with CPD 35 hours and stay registered however it is also the employer's responsible to check that all employees are registered nurses and remain registered. Each year I had to send a copy of my registration card and entry as a nurse and a prescriber to NHS management so they could verify it yearly - in order to get paid as a nurse. If your registration had lapsed you would get paid as a care assistant. You will probably read soon that in order to register all human nurses will need indemnity insurance - as an NHS nurse you are covered by your employer but if In private you need to pay your own which can cost £200 if through union. Human nurses at anytime can be asked by the NMC to provide evidence of CPD so if you've just ticked the box to say you have done it but have nothing to show you could be out in front of a hearing!

I do think the term veterinary nurse should be protected too.