RE: Kennel Assistant Duties

Jbowles — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 23:50:49 GMT

Hey,

Recently at the LVS and spoke to a lovely lady on one of the stands "Colourful CPD". They said they are involved in launching an association of veterinary care assistants (i think that's the name? apologies if I got it wrong) They will be launching it in January i believe. They will be providing bronze, silver and gold ACA training courses which may help to provide some structure in the practice? In my opinion the first step to improving standards is to introduce attainable and measurable goals that standardises the profession (some people are happy to remain an animal care assistant for the duration of their career. The ACA position can be a skilled job in the right practice and with the right mindset)

The next paragraph is purely my opinion and i don't mean to offend anyone with it. Personally I would stray away from providing training for ACAs to be monitoring anaesthetics and giving medications as I believe its unfair to put these responsibilities on to people that do not possess the required formal training. Granted there are many ACAs that have been in the profession for years that can clearly administer oral and topical medications, monitor anaesthetics (though the RCVS do state that an RVN/supervised SVN should be the one to do this if one is available) . However, these experienced ACAs haven't legally proven they are competent to be performing these tasks to the industry standard (obtained the VN qualification and are maintaining a registration with the RCVS and completing their CPD requirements) and they legally cannot provide IV/SC/IM injections. This is something even an RVN can only do under the direction of a veterinary surgeon. I see the ACA and RVN roles as seperate and i think it devalues the nursing role in the practice when we ask people that have only undergone in-house training, or 2 day courses, to perform a role that is a grey area even for nurses (anaesthesia monitoring).

I think the ACA/VCA role can be very useful without blurring the lines between the nursing role and ACA role. It depends on the size of the practice but here are a few ideas i could think of off the top of my head:

- Cleaning audits and control of protocol for each area of the practice such as surgical, kennels, consulting, pharmacy etc. This could be the responsibility of providing evidence based cleaning protocols (the NHS are a good starting point for this) and auditing that the practice is keeping up to date and all staff are following the same SOP.

- Environmental sustainability advice/protocols. Reviewing the practices impact on the environment and looking for ways to improve. For example I worked in one practice where they routinely put 10 swabs in to the bitch spay kits and only use the equivalent of 1 or 2 swabs for 80% of the spays, the remaining 8 or 9 swabs would routinely be thrown out. There are hundreds of ways we can be more environmentally friendly in practice and it doesn't require a medically trained person to coordinate this.

- Waste management SOPs. Practices commonly put far too much in to clinical waste and not enough in recycling or general waste (or they do the opposite and a lot goes in to general waste that should be in clinical) Having someone in charge of researching what can go where and communicating this to the rest of the team who are trying to keep up to date with the regular RVN/vet CPD they have to do can be really helpful.

- The usual responsibilities such as Kit cleaning and maintenance, Kennel cleaning, Stock control, Washing, Reception duties, Walking/interaction with in/day-patients, TPR recording of exact figures such as pulse rate, resp rate and temperature, not subjective readings such as airway noises, pain scoring and demeanour interpretation (after the appropriate training)

- Assisting a nurse in the preparation of a patient for surgery. Clipping and scrubbing a patient for surgery while the nurse monitors the patient (rather than the nurse trying to do both at once) can be a real help. After the appropriate training of correct clipper use, avoidance of clipper rash, scrubbing technique, clip sizes and basic practical landmark training etc etc have all been discussed and the training provided and recorded.

- Prep assistant. It doesn't require a nurse to clean down a prep table and prepare it for the next patient. you could have an ACA on shift in prep specifically to help to prep the patients (alongside the theatre nurse) and keep the day flowing smoothly. You can avoid that big clean at the end of the day if you have someone cleaning as you go! the correct circuit choice, ET tube size, kit type etc to get ready will all come with experience and training. the ACA isnt actually using this equipment, they are just putting it all in one place for the nurse/vet to use on the next patient.

-cat friendly/dog friendly protocols and keeping the practice up to date.

hopefully that gives you a few ideas, the post is getting a tad long so i'll stop there for now!

RE: Kennel Assistant Duties

apache — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 23:25:57 GMT

I suppose it depends on so many factors - the supply of the RVN/SVN in the practice and the 'quality' of the kennel assistants.

Some of the people doing the kennel assistant role are bright, switched on and waiting to get their foot in the door for a SVN role, some may not be left loose with a mop, unsupervised.

No reason they can't give basic meds. No reason they can't TPR. Walk out patients. Restrain for bloods, bandaging, etc. A little controversial but no reason you can't train them to monitor anaesthetics (either in house or with a proper course), especially if short of RVN/SVNs.

Stock control. Phone answering. What about dog grooming? Consumable ordering, price comparisons. I'd even be happy them doing some simple discharges.

RE: Kennel Assistant Duties

Louise B — Fri, 19 Nov 2021 15:12:54 GMT

What direct dog care duties do you have on there? what about thinking about ways to make the KAs advocates for monitoring low stress handling measures? Teach the KAs how to do basic audits and build this into their weekly / monthly roles. They make be really good at auditing how well basic care is being achieved, etc and gives them more buy in to quality improvement within the practice.

Otherwise, temp monitoring of fridges, etc is something that regularly gets forgotten IMO to useful to formalise on a checklist.