Veterinary physiotherapy talks begin
Leading veterinary physiotherapy, hydrotherapy and osteotherapy representatives have met with Defra and Lantra to begin a series of talks about improving the industry's future.
This was the first of a number of fact-finding meetings, as part of Defra's project to review the UK's minor procedures regime. Other areas being looked at include artificial insemination technicians, equine dental workers and musculoskeletal therapists.
BVA past-president Carl Padgett and RCVS past-president Peter Jinman were on the Defra review group, along with chief veterinary officers from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Mr Jinman said: "We're looking to rationalise the industry and educate all the sides involved so they know what the situation is regarding veterinary physiotherapy.
"We're trying to get these disparate groups together and form areas of commonality that [could] be translated into a legal framework at some stage in the future."
Attendees were expected to discuss the prospect of an overarching physiotherapy regulator.
Gail Williams, of the Association for the Scientific Study of Veterinary and Animal Physiotherapy, said: "The general thinking at the moment is all the associations that agree to sit down with Lantra will nominate one or two members to sit on an overarching body, with each association having an equal say.
"This would be a massive benefit for those working within the industry, because it would give everyone who has worked hard to become properly qualified, professional and insured a proper statutory framework within which they can practice, and it would weed out the 'quacks'."
Defra has published guidance for the vet sector ahead of a proposed UK-EU Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement.
