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Essential care guidance for veterinary practices
Every veterinary practice needs to form its own opinion of what it considers essential.
What constitutes an essential veterinary service?

The UK government has updated its list of premises that can remain open during the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak to include veterinary surgeries. In light of this move, this article aims to provide guidance on what constitutes emergency and essential care.

It is important to stress that veterinary practices provide a number of essential services, and can only run emergency services for a few days before the essential services start to build up.

Emergency services
These are services that must be done urgently. Examples of veterinary emergencies requiring immediate attention include difficulty breathing, severe bleeding, collapse, some seizures, road traffic accidents and difficult calvings.

Essential services
These are services that must be done but not necessarily urgently. These services include the provision of non-routine operations and essential medicines, the nursing care of wounds, some immunisations and ongoing medical treatments.

Every veterinary practice needs to form its own opinion of what it considers essential and to make a decision based on this.

Social distancing and face-to-face contact
It is vital that all veterinary practices take steps to introduce social distancing measures to reduce the transmission of COVID-19 between people. These measures should be carried out in addition to increased handwashing and good respiratory hygiene. More information about social distancing can be found here.

It is also advised that the number of clients seen face-to-face should be kept to an absolute minimum. Please click here for advice in how to reduce face-to-face contact in veterinary practices.

MRCVSOnline will endeavour to keep the profession updated on COVID-19 coronavirus as the situation unfolds. Please don't hesitate to contact us with any ideas or suggestions as to how we can help with measures to control the spread of the virus.

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Rabbit Awareness Week set to return this summer

News Story 1
 Rabbit Awareness Week (RAW) is returning this summer, running from 24-28 June 2024. The theme for this year will be 'Healthy Diet, Happy Bunnies'.

The focus on rabbits' diet comes after the most recent PDSA Animal Wellbeing (PAW) Report report revealed that 42 per cent of veterinary professionals identified inappropriate diet as one of the five most important rabbit welfare issues that need to be address.

The campaign will include veterinary blogs, videos, and digital waiting room resources. Practices can sign up to receive updates about RAW. 

Click here for more...
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.