TRAINING PRACTICE

There are two ways to qualify as a veterinary nurse.

The first is to go to College or University full time.

With a degree course option you would be required to find a work experience placement with a Veterinary Practice during your holidays.  You should approach the specific University to find details on this.

The college of Animal Welfare has just gained approval from the RCVS to run a two and a half year course.  On this course the college is totally responsible for training and students are not required to find their own work experience placement or to be employed in a Veterinary Practice.

To enrole onto the programme students will need to be a minimum of 16 years of age and have 5 GCSEs at grades C or above including English Language, Maths and a Science subject or equivalent.

For further information on the programme please call Sarah McAlister on 01480 226 180

The second is to be employed by a veterinary practice which is a training practice.

 We may then send staff on day release or block release to a college which teaches veterinary nursing. Block release is generally 6 weeks a year, probably in 3 parts. The rest of their training is done “in house” by those of our nursing staff who are qualified assessors. The course is in 2 parts, NVQ Level 2 and Level 3, and is quite demanding. Each part consists of written and practical examinations and a portfolio of case histories compiled from cases at the surgery and pertaining to the relevant topics being studied and demonstrating experience, competence and understanding of specific issues. Knowledge and capability with a whole range of subjects from reception to health and safety, radiology to teamwork and so on, must be demonstrated.

The assessor will mark and go over written work with a student, but much of the learning is done in a working environment. Our practice is not a college and first and foremost our trainees are being paid to work at the surgery: the major part of their studies are done at home. Without this commitment a student has little chance of success.

Most of the people that we put forward for training have already worked for us in the capacity of auxiliary nurse/ kennel assistant for one to two years. This gives them the necessary grounding to ready to start the course. There are minimum academic requirements to be accepted onto the course , the most important of those being a grade C in science. If you do not have the necessary grades it is possible to do a year’s course in auxiliary veterinary nursing and passing that exempts the student from having to have these grades.

Study is funded partly by the practice and partly by the student joining a modern apprenticeship scheme which pays the course fees if the student has, or is prepared to get, certain minimum qualifications in numeracy and literacy.

It must be stressed that it takes probably four years and a lot of commitment to become a veterinary nurse. We always have people enquiring about training but can only offer a post when a vacancy becomes available. We make a considerable investment of time and money in our trainees and in return we expect them to work for us for a certain period after qualifying.

WORK EXPERIENCE

Due to the onerus requirements of Health and Safety, and the Local Authority conditions concerning young persons in this work environment, we take no one under the age of 18 for work experience, Veterinary Students, and anyone of 18 and over who is considering training to work in a veterinary practice, is welcome to approach us with a view to arranging some time ‘seeing practice’.