Farming

The veterinary profession is facing a ‘storm’ of workforce shortages following a drop in new EU registrants and a huge rise in demand for export health certificates.

Data released by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) has revealed that the annual number of foreign vets coming to work in the UK had fallen by two thirds since Brexit -due to the ending of free movement and the impacts of the Covid pandemic.

Claiming that the lack of vets threatened wide-ranging impacts across the sector - especially in areas such as international trade and public health - the British Veterinary Association (BVA) warned that the fall had occurred at a time when demand for veterinary certification of animal products for export to the EU had rocketed more than tenfold following Brexit.

As recently as 2019 close to half of all vets registering in the UK had trained in the EU .

And while steps have recently been taken to make it easier for foreign vets to register and to increase the number of UK vet colleges, the BVA has warned that there was no single silver bullet solution to solve the issues.

“Vets are working incredibly hard but it’s an uphill struggle to comfortably cover all the work currently required,” said James Russell, BVA senior vice president.

“Moving some vets around to plug the gaps is just robbing Peter to pay Paul, as it can lead to issues with backfilling roles in other areas which desperately need to keep staffing levels up, such as large animal work.”