Last week's council meeting, which took place at Scottish Parliament, is the first in the college's history to take place outside of Belgravia House.

Language testing rules reignite debate on One Health

RCVS Council needs to send "a very strong message" to Defra that there should be no difference in language testing provisions for members of the medical and veterinary professions. This was the call from Peter Jinman last week during a meeting of the council in Edinburgh.

It emerged during the meeting - the first in the college's history to be held outside of its headquarters in London - that the RCVS may have fewer powers to evaluate language competence than the General Medical Council (GMC), as the latter takes into account patient safety.

Mr Jinman said to suggest there should be a difference of standards between the two professions is "unacceptable", bringing the issue of One Health to the foreground once again.

"We want to be very clear in the message we send back to Defra," he said. "Animal welfare is predominant in our thoughts with regard to the profession, but so is public health…

"We are talking about One Health. We're keen on One Health and now suddenly we're getting differentiation."

Speaking in Edinburgh, RCVS registrar Gordon Hockey revealed that during meetings with Defra last week, it emerged the college will not be able to language test only the EU veterinary surgeons on the register unless these provisions are applied to all 26,000 vets.

Mr Hockey proposed that the college should not seek additional controls, but instead should try to strengthen the language competence aspect of the Code of Professional Conduct.

However, Professor the Lord Trees pointed out that the GMC assesses language competence and asked why the veterinary profession cannot mirror this.

Mr Hockey responded by explaining that the healthcare professions are under "slightly different provisions" as they take into account patient safety, prompting a reaction among several of the council members who pointed out "so do we".

Such arguments are "generally not accepted", Mr Hockey said, as it is "primarily animal welfare that we are looking at".

The paper also proposes that veterinary surgeons who qualified in the EU outside of the UK, would be asked a series of questions during the RCVS registration process. These would relate to the applicant's language qualifications, experience and general ability to use the English language.

If the applicant were to answer no to all four questions, they would be required to remedy this and pass a language test before reapplying.

Currently the RCVS has no powers to language test EU nationals who acquired their qualifications outside of the UK. The college cannot refuse to register them or require them to complete a language course even if there are clear concerns about their language skills.

A new directive will make this expressly allowed, meaning the Veterinary Surgeons Act must be updated by January 2016.

Council approved plans to consult on this issue in July 2015.

Image: Scottish Parliament, main debating chamber. Attribution: Paul Buckingham/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.0