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There's nothing new about people pretending to be "vets". Years ago I was working in Australia and whilst up in Cairns I met a guy in the street who was completely drunk. He asked me what I did and I told him I was a vet. He told me in a broad and very slurred Australian accent "oim'a vet too." From his drunken ramblings I came to understand what that meant was that in between going to Cairns and getting hammered he worked on the sheep stations trimming feet and administering worming drenches. So in his eyes that made him a "vet".
The reason why the profession of veterinary surgery exists, and why there is a Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, is that prior to the existence of the profession standards of animal healthcare were extremely variable and animal welfare suffered. The reason why we protect the title "veterinary surgeon or vet" with the Veterinary Surgeons Act (which protects little else) is that the animal-owning public needs to know who is qualified to practice and who isn't. If the public can't identify who is and is not a vet animal welfare suffers, but apart from that if people hand over their money to those who aren't vets they are in fact being defrauded in just the same way as if they went to a rogue trader or rogue builder; they're not getting the service they're paying for. There are of course other complications, like untrained people being given access to controlled drugs and other prescription only medicines, but the core function is to protect animals and the public.
The basic function of the College is that in the UK it assures the quality of veterinary education by setting standards for the vet schools, and assures that those who want to call themselves vets have the necessary training to do so. That's a difficult job, and this recent case underlines what the College's core function really is. That's what it's strapline "setting veterinary standards" is all about. With our borders opening up to vets trained in other parts of Europe by virtue of our membership of the EU, that job is getting more difficult.
Because this core function is so difficult I've never understood why in its Code of Practice (formerly the Guide to Professional Conduct) the College goes beyond making it an obligation for individual vets to provide 24-7 emergency cover just to their own registered clients and obliging them to see unregistered clients, rather than just leaving it to the conscience of individual vets as an act of charity to deal with the animals of those who have no relationship with them; after all, the majority of vets work in private business, as private individuals, receiving little or no money from the State to support them and their businesses. The Guide was essentially the same; it imposed an obligation upon vets to deal with the animals of owners who weren't registered with them. If you queried this with the College someone would tell you that's not always true, because if you dug deep enough in the further guidance you'd find a few weasel words letting vets off occasionally if people weren't actually registered; but not in all circumstances and you pretty much had to be a lawyer to understand what it said. You certainly couldn't expect the general public to understand what was written.
The trouble is that the Code is out there for everyone in the world to see on their smartphone; it doesn't help animal owners to understand their own obligations and the way in which it is presently written is an invitation to the disgruntled to complain, whether the complaint is justifiable or not. With a new Chief Executive at the College who has a consumer-organisation background, the College presently talking about ADR (alternative dispute resolution) and trying to make it's complaint system more independent, the Code in its present form is a risk to vets. ADR is not in itself a bad thing but the trouble is, in trying to weed out the frivolous and unjustifiable complaints from those that need addressing it's a problem that anyone who hasn't seen a practice for years then turns up out of the blue demanding service out of hours can just look at the Code on their smartphone and go "...hang on a minute, this says you have to see me." If you're a vet wondering whether you have to deal with such a case you're also not going to get good professional guidance in these circumstances from the College's Profcon department, because all they can really do is point you at the Code: The Code is the Code is the Code and Profcon didn't write it.
It's a mystery to me why the College does this. Many who seek election and go to the College will turn round to you after they've been indoctrinated and say to you, "..ahh, but the College is not there to protect individual vets, it's there to protect animals and the public." The trouble is, in life if you give everyone a free ride that will devalue your service and cause you to be taken advantage of. That free-ride being imposed by the College via it's code isn't even imposed for the most part on businesses. The College only has the power under the Veterinary Surgeons Act to discipline individual vets, not to punish veterinary businesses. And given that the majority of members of the College are not equity holders, or even managers, but are just individual employees or self-employed vets doing a difficult job, that free-ride is imposed on the people with the least power to change things. The situation is iniquitous.
Anyone who seeks election and goes to the College, or just chooses to work for it, needs to understand that the College serves it's public function and provides a public benefit just by allowing the public to see who is and is not a vet. If it wanted to do more it could serve the public by allowing the public to understand who is and is not a veterinary nurse. And if it really wanted to do something worthwhile it would find a way to allow the public to genuinely distinguish one veterinary business providing a type of service from another; e.g. distinguish businesses that really do provide 24-7 emergency cover from those that don't. Now that would be really difficult. Whatever it does, it's not serving the public good by setting out a Code that allows individual vets to be taken advantage of.
It's a difficult job the College has to do, deciding who is and isn't a vet. And if anyone sees Jayson Paul Wells they'd like you to help them do it by contacting the police.