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Results of UK’s first major neutering audit revealed
Neutering in cats produced less abnormalities than in dogs and bitches.
Over 30,000 neutering cases produces benchmark for the veterinary profession

A major audit of the routine neutering of cats and dogs across UK veterinary practices has been completed. Veterinary practices will now be able to measure their performance against the national average.  

VetAUDIT, originally an independent project now under RCVS Knowledge, has revealed the following key data points:

  • over three-quarters of cases presented with no abnormalities
  • between 8.2 per cent and 9.1 per cent of cases required medical treatment or surgical intervention due to abnormalities
  • approximately one in ten cases were deemed abnormal but did not require further treatment
  • the fatality rate of all cases was 0.1 per cent
  • neutering in cats produced less abnormalities than in dogs and bitches
  • spays resulted in more complications than castrates in both cats and dogs.

“Benchmarking is a great way to compare how your practice is performing compared to the national average” explains Bradley Viner, chair of the Quality Improvement Advisory Board at RCVS Knowledge and part of the vetAUDIT team.

However, Viner added the caveat that the data “needs to be the first stage in a quality improvement process… We have to recognise that we work in complex systems that do not always function perfectly. Recognising that we can always do things better and discouraging defensive behaviour are the first steps in driving forward quality of care”.

Practices can read the full results and include their own data in the audit with free-of-charge analysis at https://vetaudit.rcvsk.org

 

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RCVS Knowledge appoints Veterinary Evidence editor-in-chief

News Story 1
 RCVS Knowledge has welcomed Professor Peter Cockcroft as editor-in-chief for Veterinary Evidence.

A world-renowned expert in evidence-based veterinary medicine, Prof Cockcroft will lead the strategic development and editorial quality of the open-access journal. He was previously in the role from 2017-2020.

Katie Mantell, CEO of RCVS Knowledge, said: "We are excited about the extensive knowledge of evidence-based veterinary medicine and clinical veterinary research that Peter brings, and we look forward to working with him over this next phase of the journal's development." 

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News Shorts
CVS Group hit by cyber attack

CVS Group, which owns more than 450 veterinary practices in the UK, has been hit by a cyber attack.

In a statement, the group said the incident involved unauthorised external access to a limited number of its IT systems. As soon as the attack was discovered, the group took its IT systems temporarily offline, causing 'considerable operational disruption'.

It has warned that the security steps taken and ongoing plans to move its operational systems and IT infrastructure to the Cloud are likely to have an ongoing impact over a number of weeks.

Due to the risk that personal information was accessed, CVS has informed the Information Commissioner's Office. The company is working with third party consultants to investigate the incident.