Landmark 2019 Surveys of the Professions launched

This week we will be launching our landmark Surveys of the Professions 2019 sent to every member of the RCVS and registered veterinary nurse to help get a current snapshot of the professions.

The Surveys are conducted every four to five years and ask vets and vet nurses respectively to answer questions on a wide variety of subjects. This includes demographic data (for example, socio-economic background, educational attainment, race/ethnicity, disability), work-related data (for example, employment status, location of workplace, type of workplace, hours of work, position in practice) and information about professional achievement (for example, hours of continuing professional development (CPD) undertaken and extra qualifications earned).

Furthermore, the Surveys, which are conducted on the College’s behalf by the Institute for Employment Studies, also ask respondents about their views on different aspects of their profession, including career plans, challenges facing the profession, and wellbeing.

Additional questions for this year’s Surveys include those around the professions’ views of the RCVS, including its values, how it should communicate, and what it should prioritise in future years.

Lizzie Lockett, RCVS CEO (pictured right), said: “The results of the Surveys form a very important ‘snapshot’ of the profession at a given point in time, but they also prove useful for years to come in terms of how the College develops its regulatory and educational policy, the areas it chooses to focus on and the issues it chooses to tackle.

“The ensuing reports are also used by a myriad of other individuals, such as those in academia, government and representative bodies, as well as journalists. It’s therefore really important that we have as accurate a picture as possible. So although completing the Surveys is entirely voluntary, we strongly encourage members of the professions to take the time to complete them. It will, ultimately, help the development of appropriate and supportive policies for your profession.”

In addition to the two main surveys, aimed at vets and vet nurses respectively, there will be an additional survey for MsRCVS who practise overseas. This survey aims to better understand why they continue to retain their MRCVS status, what this status means in the countries in which they work, global attitudes towards the RCVS and how the College could improve its communication with them.