Veterinary Nurse Training

Re: Veterinary Nurse Training

Clare Tapsfield-Wright — Sun, 31 May 2015 20:02:43 GMT

We always paid them even though not obliged to as we got good motivated students who engaged with the practice. We gained really good long term staff members as a result.

Re: Veterinary Nurse Training

karen jones — Thu, 28 May 2015 22:18:47 GMT

We have students from Harper Adams university. during their first year they come on 3x 6 week blocks to learn the basics. we dont pay them for this but if if we take them for the year placement we pay them minimum wage for their age. We have had an email form Harper saying that they can only work unpaid for so many weeks but the way its worked out is complicated. On the block release bit they are extras to our normal staff and are basically untrained and need lots of help and supervision, some are much better than others and some have become permanent fixtures at the practice when they've finished their degree. i would never expect anyone to work full time for year unpaid. we have once had someone on the apprentice scheme paying a pittance , we have never done it since .

Re: Veterinary Nurse Training

Martin Atkinson — Thu, 28 May 2015 13:56:39 GMT

Nothwithstanding any legal or moral requirement for payment of workers, just who is going to check that these 'voluntary' students were paid or not. Is someone going to look at your PAYE records or the students P60/P45? Why not just say they've been paid? It is after all just a piece of red tape that deserves to be ignored so long as the placement otherwise qualifies.

Re: Veterinary Nurse Training

Bob Russell — Wed, 27 May 2015 14:26:36 GMT

Apprentices should get £2.73 per hour for the first year for 16-18 year olds. Normal NMW for those 19 and over according to .gov.uk.

Re: Veterinary Nurse Training

Joyce Whitehead — Wed, 27 May 2015 14:23:25 GMT

The daughter of friends of ours did a foundation degree, and her placement was totally unpaid. Exploitation at it's worst to me, we get numerous requests for placements, and I'm sure they are desperate enough that some would work for nothing. This particular student nurse was often asked to cover holidays etc in addition to her usual hours, and wasn't even paid for that. Oddly she is still with the same practice, I don't know if they contract them in even when they are not paying their students. Definitely a loophole that should be changed.

Re: Veterinary Nurse Training

Michael Woodhouse — Wed, 27 May 2015 13:12:52 GMT

If we have the other thread "thank a VN" should this be renamed "exploit a VN"?

I'm astounded.

This is clearly a terrible loophole that should be closed. Am I correct in my understanding that it doesn't matter how long a student VN is in training if you are paying them NMW? Then there should be nothing to figure out.

Re: Veterinary Nurse Training

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Wed, 27 May 2015 13:01:52 GMT

[quote user="minnie"]apprenticeship, college/uni placement - and yes its legal[/quote]

Wow.

I remember a certain MRCVS quite recently up before DC: he was a qualified farrier as well as a veterinary surgeon, and he had an apprentice to whom he had not paid minimum wage; he was prosecuted for that and found guilty, and so automatically got before DC. I think he got off with a severe reprimand, maybe suspension, I can't remember that.

If you don't pay them, do you expect them to be loyal when they've achieved their qualifications?

Re: Veterinary Nurse Training

Minnie — Wed, 27 May 2015 11:14:31 GMT

apprenticeship, college/uni placement - and yes its legal

Re: Veterinary Nurse Training

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Wed, 27 May 2015 10:27:29 GMT

[quote user="rjhvet"]Was really surprised to discover today that many svn's are not paid nmw.[/quote]

Is that legal? How come?

Re: Veterinary Nurse Training

Bob Russell — Wed, 27 May 2015 09:38:26 GMT

I have to admit, I had assumed that everyone was getting at least NMW!

Re: Veterinary Nurse Training

Michael Woodhouse — Tue, 26 May 2015 22:28:56 GMT

We were planning on some clause where they would have to pay back training costs if they left within 2 years of qualifying.

I was earning more than the current NMW at 18 milking cows and driving tractors nearly 15 years ago.

Re: Veterinary Nurse Training

rjhvet — Tue, 26 May 2015 22:15:32 GMT

It appears not !

We have been paying for many years, some apprentice route ( not again as no way to "tie in" to work for the practice), we're fed up with the costs and efforts of training just to supply other practices with qualified vn's. ( we're not ogres, we're good , decent employers, bend over backwards to help etc etc etc).

Was really surprised to discover today that many svn's are not paid nmw. ( We paid our first year apprentices more than double what they were entitled to, not that it is appreciated by all).

All very frustrating and now to discover that many positions were unpaid, we must have been crazy..........

Re: Veterinary Nurse Training

Michael Woodhouse — Tue, 26 May 2015 22:05:29 GMT

Hang on, I'm confused. Are practices not paying national minimum wage to the student nurses?

We were looking at possibly starting and training 2 up, but I had budgeted to pay them NMW for their respective age.

Re: Veterinary Nurse Training

Chris Barker — Tue, 26 May 2015 21:55:21 GMT

We too are a TP and have currently have students attending the practice from three separate Colleges. Many years back we used to offer visiting student nurses short-term training contracts …. however we dropped these when it was pointed out to us that in a redundancy situation the students were better protected than our (more valuable) RVNs! Apprenticeships have their own legal complications and so we have not gone down that line; instead we offer unpaid placements to SVNs on training courses seeking to gain suitable practical experience and to complete their NPL.

Life has suddenly become more complicated by the decision by VN Council to drop its requirement for SVNs to carry out 60 weeks of placement training, the decision made due to concerns regarding the application of the National Minimum Wage Regulations. For as stated in this month’s VN Training Newsletter, published by the RCVS, ‘under the current NMWR, work experience undertaken by students as part of UK-based higher or further education courses is exempt from the national minimum wage provided that the work experience placement does not exceed a period of one year.’ It would appear that these regulations were originally drafted to protect interns from never-ending unpaid ‘work placements’; no-one is absolutely sure how they relate to the current system of VN training! I understand that at least two large organisations have sought legal advice on this matter, and, unsurprisingly, the legal opinions differ! A definitive view will not be available until the regulations have been tested, probably through the mechanism of an Employment Tribunal; volunteers please take one step forward! But until they have been tested the VN Council decision could be seen as premature, even though it was based on genuine concerns.

For the regulations refer simply to a period of '52 weeks', and no-one is certain what this means. A calendar year…a continuous block of 52 weeks…a total of 52 weeks over the course of a SVNs' total studies…? What is clear is that the nature of ‘placements’ varies markedly from College to College, and while for one College a week can represent 5 full-time days, for another it may be only 1 or 2 days of day release. So I guess all the Colleges are hurriedly re-evaluating/re-structuring their courses to ensure that as much practical experience can be gained in as short a time as possible. And while the '60 weeks’ requirement may have gone, the demand for 2100 hours in placement remains. Some Colleges have suggested that the working week for SVNs should rise to 40.5 hours a week in order that the 2100 hours can be ‘serviced’ within a 52 weeks period… despite this representing a working week legally impossible for the 16 year old students now being admitted by some Colleges! Nor does it allow for periods of holiday which the SVNs 'accrue' while on placement... Transitional arrangements for those SVNs currently in placement (who simply cannot reach the figure of 2100 hours in the weeks of placement they have remaining) are being worked out by the RCVS.

The consequences for training practices of the decision by VN Council are truly significant, and are deserving of wider consideration. For it is now for practices such as ours to decide what to do with their current SVNs, especially if their placements are approaching, or have already exceded 52 weeks. It is not just simply a matter of paying their weeks of placement above and beyond 52 weeks at minimum wage… If, at the outset of training an ‘employer’ knows that the student will be on placement for more than 52 weeks, then the student is entitled to payment of the national minimal wage FROM DAY ONE!

Our current second year students are very close to completing their NPLs, and fully understand the necessity for their future career of their doing so. They are very unlikely to rock the boat. But it would perhaps take just one impecunious SVN to decide to take her ‘employer’ to Tribunal for the wages that he/she is ‘owed’ for practices to withdraw from the system and for much of the VN training placement system to founder.

We are finding that even ‘switched-on’ students in our reasonably busy practice can struggle to complete their NPL in 60 weeks. Shorn of eight weeks I fear that many will in the future fall significantly short. But given the financial consequences of allowing SVNs a placement exceeding 52 weeks I foresee the TPs saying to new trainees - ‘You have 52 weeks - not a day longer. We will help you as much as we can but if your NPL is incomplete by the end of this period then responsibility will revert to your College to ensure that all missing sections are completed in-house’. Ultimate responsibility for the training of SVNs sits full square with the Colleges who are charging the SVNs substantial training fees. Will the Colleges be able to provide such in-house top-up tuition…? Who knows. We are happy to accommodate SVNs, but training them is not without cost to the practice - our RVNs spend much time supervising their work and completing the NPL, time which is lost to the practice but for which salaries continue to be paid. Consequently if we are required to employ and pay SVNs as suggested by some Colleges then we shall indeed withdraw from active involvement in their training.

Re: Veterinary Nurse Training

Andrew Mellor — Tue, 26 May 2015 17:04:43 GMT

we have had this situation and our training college said that they had to be in paid employment or the time worked would not count towards diploma. different training colleges may have different views ours was Myerscough, although they may only be going off RCVS rules.