The RCVS will be hosting a variety of talks and workshops at the upcoming Society of Practising Veterinary Surgeons (SPVS) Congress, taking place Thursday 30 January to Saturday 1 February 2025 at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole.

Among the topics taking centre stage are recruitment and retention, cross industry collaboration, managing under care conflicts, and enhancing clinical career pathways for veterinary surgeons.

On the stand, staff will be available to chat to about any overarching questions, as well as provide information on how to access the RCVS Academy - the RCVS’s free digital learning platform.

RCVS involvement in congress sessions is as follows:

• Where has everyone gone: recruitment & retention - Thursday 30 January – Stream B: 2.30pm to 3.25pm

RCVS Director for the Advancement of the Professions, Angharad Belcher, will be speaking about the RCVS Workforce Action Plan, designed to help mitigate the impact of the ongoing workforce shortages in the professions. The plan details how collaboration, culture change, career development and leadership, among other things, could help with workforce shortages by improving retention, encouraging more people to join, and making it easier for those who have left the professions to return.

Angharad will be providing an update on the progress of the plan, as well as outlining upcoming workforce projects.

• Cross industry collaborations – what can we learn from these relationships – Thursday 30 January – Stream C: 4pm to 4.40pm

Having both contributed to the recent Professional Standards Authority podcasts on collaboration, RCVS CEO, Lizzie Lockett, and Medical Director & Director of Safety at Healthcare Improvement Scotland, Simon Watson, will share how to be involved in fruitful partnerships.

In the session, they will talk through examples of collaborations they have been involved in, discuss the benefits of engaging in projects outside your own profession, consider what made these alliances successful, and what they might have done differently. The session will culminate in a discussion focussed on how collaborating on antimicrobial stewardship offers great crossover potential between animal and human medicine to develop effective guidelines and improve patient outcomes.

• Enhancing Clinical Career Pathways for the Veterinary Profession – Friday 31 January - Business Club Live: 9am to 10.25am

The RCVS Clinical Career Pathways project is a new initiative aimed at improving career options for vets in clinical practice. This includes three workstreams which will develop proposals (for future consultation with the profession) to:

1. Develop specialty training for primary care vets

2. Consider the role definition and name of current roles for vets

3. Develop more flexible routes to specialisation.

Members of the RCVS Veterinary Clinical Careers Pathway Working Group, Dr Linda Prescott-Clements, Jenny Soreskog-Turp, and Peter O’Hagan will be available to chat about the proposals and listen to your feedback.

• Managing under care and mutual client conflicts – Friday 31 January – Stream C: 11.45 to 12.25pm

RCVS President Linda Belton will take delegates through questions about the collective responsibilities of veterinary professionals in holding each other to account when it comes to under care. The session will also outline the responsibilities of the RCVS as a regulator, including what it means to be a self-regulated professional, as well as look at what the RCVS guidance on prescribing POM-Vs (also known as ‘under care’) and mutual clients requires, and its underlying rationale.

From a practical perspective, the session will look at what enforcement mechanisms are available to veterinary professionals, where guidance is not being followed by others.

In addition to the sessions noted above, Linda Belton will also be appearing on the ‘CMA Outcome: How to Progress’ panel, taking place as part of Stream A of the congress programme from 4.45pm to 5.25pm on Thursday 30 January.

For more information on SPVS Congress 2025, visit the main SPVS Congress webpage.


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