Annual report made to RCVS\u2019 VN council revealed that 64 concerns relating to RVNs were registered in the year up to 31 March 2025, up from 46 over the previous year.<\/p>\n
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The head of the RVN Preliminary Investigation Committee (PIC) has expressed concern over the mental health impact investigations can have on veterinary nurses, as new figures showed complaints made about VNs have increased significantly.<\/strong><\/p>\n An annual report made to RCVS\u2019 VN council revealed that 64 concerns relating to RVNs were registered in the year up to 31 March 2025, up from 46 over the previous year \u2013 an increase of 39% \u2013 although the numbers remain well below those made in relation to veterinary surgeons.<\/p>\n Although most of the concerns related to nurses\u2019 execution of their regular duties \u2013 40 of the 64 fell under the category of veterinary care \u2013 RVN PIC chair Mark Stobbs is concerned about the impact the investigative process can have in cases involving mental health issues or addiction.<\/p>\n Speaking at the VN council\u2019s May meeting, Mr Stobbs said: \u201cThere seem to be a number of those [cases] which lead to behaviours, particularly around controlled drugs and other poor behaviours, where this is in the background and there are times where what [nurses] have done is serious [so] you have to forward it.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I do worry about the impact on the health of the individual as well. I\u2019m not sure we make their health situation better.\u201d<\/p>\n He added the PIC team \u201cis very good signposting the registrants to Vetlife and the other support available\u201d and that members are \u201cextremely sensitive\u201d regarding mental health issues \u201cinsofar as you can, where you know you are dealing with a complaint which could be career-threatening\u201d.<\/p>\n Doubled<\/p>\n In March, an RVN was struck off after admitting to stealing drugs from practices where she had worked.<\/p>\n The number of complaints registered in relation to RVNs has more than doubled since 2019-20, when 27 were lodged.<\/p>\n Concerns raised regarding vets have also risen in that time, going from 533 in the year up to 31 March 2020 to 602 for the same period in 2023-24; figures for 2024-25 are yet to be published.<\/p>\n Increased awareness<\/p>\n Mr Stobbs believes an increased level of awareness of vet nurses \u2013 and the ability to complain to a regulatory body \u2013 accounts for some of the uplift, along with an expected rise coinciding with an increase in the number of RVNs over the period.<\/p>\n Of the 64 concerns raised, 40 were closed by the PIC at the first stage of investigation, while a further 17 were still in that phase at the time of the council meeting.<\/p>\n Mr Stobbs said: \u201cA lot of the complaints that we see are very, very sad cases where an animal has been lost. It is one of those things which sadly you will see regularly, it is nobody\u2019s fault.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cWe\u2019ve had a very busy year. I was told that in the past we had to cancel meetings because there wasn\u2019t enough business, [that is] certainly not the case now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Annual report made to RCVS\u2019 VN council revealed that 64 concerns relating to RVNs were registered in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4317],"tags":[105,218,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-170998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114654995108745646","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}