Health and safety for veterinary practices.

What a veterinary health and safety consultant actually covers

A practice manager is usually running health and safety alongside rotas, stock, clients and staffing. The duties do not shrink because the team is small. What helps is a competent person who knows the sector, builds the documents once, properly, and then keeps them true as the practice changes. These are the areas we work through with every practice.

RCVS Practice Standards Scheme

The Practice Standards Scheme asks for health and safety evidence across the practice: a written policy, risk assessments, COSHH assessments, radiation arrangements, training records and the checks that prove the controls work. Assessors look for documents that match the building and the team in front of them, not a template with another practice's name crossed out.

We build what is missing, fix what would not survive a question, and set up a simple review cycle so the evidence is still current at the next assessment rather than rebuilt in a panic the month before.

Radiation protection

Radiography brings the Ionising Radiations Regulations 2017 into the practice: consultation with a Radiation Protection Adviser, local rules for each X-ray room, an appointed Radiation Protection Supervisor, designated areas, personal dose monitoring where it is needed, and maintenance records for the equipment.

The common gap is not the paperwork existing. It is the local rules describing a room nobody recognises, a supervisor who was never trained for the role, or dose badges that are worn but never reviewed. Manual restraint of animals during exposures should be the rare exception, and the records should show how that is controlled.

Anaesthetic gases, medicines and COSHH

Volatile anaesthetic agents, cytotoxic drugs, disinfectants, formalin and cleaning chemicals all need COSHH assessments that reflect how they are actually used: induction, recovery, scavenging, spills and the handling of excreta from treated animals. Several anaesthetic agents carry workplace exposure limits, so scavenging systems need examination and testing, with records to show it.

We assess each substance in its real use, check the controls are working, and give staff instructions short enough to be read at the point of use.

Zoonoses and infection control

Ringworm, leptospirosis, Q fever, psittacosis, campylobacter and bovine TB are working risks in veterinary practice, not textbook ones. Isolation procedures, personal protective equipment, hand hygiene, laundry and the handling of samples all belong in an infection control system that staff can follow under pressure, including pregnant and immunocompromised colleagues who need individual assessment.

Sharps, clinical waste and animal handling

Needlestick injuries, scalpel cuts, bites, scratches and crush injuries from large animals make up much of a practice's accident book. We look at sharps disposal, safer devices, clinical and hazardous waste routes, and the manual handling of sedated animals, kennels and feed, so the controls are built into the job rather than written into a file.

Ambulatory, farm and lone working

Farm calls, home visits and out of hours work move the risk off site: lone working on client premises, livestock handling with unknown facilities, driving, field euthanasia including captive bolt procedures, and the storage and disposal of carcasses. We build arrangements that cover the van as seriously as the surgery, with check in procedures that actually get used.

Wellbeing, workload and violence

The profession carries well documented pressures: long hours, emotionally demanding work, euthanasia, and difficult or aggressive clients. Work related stress falls under the same duty to assess as any physical hazard. We help practices assess it properly, tie it to support such as Vetlife and the RCVS Mind Matters Initiative, and set clear procedures for handling abuse at reception.

How we work with a practice

For a multisite practice group we are currently supporting, the work started with a site by site review against the Practice Standards requirements, then a shared document set that each site adapts, and a regular cycle of site visits and reviews. Smaller practices usually start with a single document review or a fixed price build ahead of assessment.

Either way you deal with one chartered practitioner, Martin Maran CMIOSH, OSHCR registered, who has done the work rather than managed someone else doing it.