RCVS' latest tripwire

RE: RCVS' latest tripwire

grumpyoldman — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 22:26:22 GMT

The difficulty is that many people with problems particularly age related degenerate changes will have good days and moments of clarity ,they will appear for the purposes of a 5-10 min consult to be the "full quid". They will go to reception and sign a consent form ,you will perform your radiography and TPLO etc . Then the son/daughter/guardian rocks up to collect the dog the next day and plays merry hell about the bill, refuses to pay and starts a complaint. I guess the RCVS are trying to mitigate these situations by adding in the extra time factor. However the owner of the dog is just as likely to show up for the repeat appointment 48 hours later with the dog without telling anyone. And you will still end up with the same shite storm.We are not trained as GP doctors and if we assume incorrectly that someone is not functioning properly when in fact they are just a bit dim its probably going to land us in even more trouble, making any kind of judgement at all is therefore very risky. So nice try but no Cigar.

RE: RCVS' latest tripwire

David Mills — Wed, 11 Apr 2018 02:37:11 GMT

Amazing.

Having worked in charity practice for the last 5y+, with a higher than average clientele with mental health issues, none of the charities (wealth of knowledge, and gudielines) were consulted about this.

RE: RCVS' latest tripwire

Clive Ansell — Tue, 10 Apr 2018 12:39:29 GMT

[quote user="Richard Carter"]and the RCVS should reflect the fact we are there to look after the patient, not the client and that in cases where welfare can be considered to be severely compromised, may have to act against the client and their wishes.[/quote]

I think they already do really.

The oath we swear is to the animal patient that is under our care, not to the owner or client. Often gets forgotten though.

RE: RCVS' latest tripwire

George Cooper — Tue, 10 Apr 2018 12:20:51 GMT

[quote user="Richard Carter"]

and the RCVS should reflect the fact we are there to look after the patient, not the client and that in cases where welfare can be considered to be severely compromised, may have to act against the client and their wishes.

[/quote]

I've some very personal reasons for commending this post by Richard. For some considerable time I have been most concerned that the leaning of RCVS pronouncements has been to pander to "the public" and their expectation, the concept of "informed consent", and their needs almost, it seems, to the relegation of the animal into second place.

I'm not going elaborate on those "personal reasons" here in public - but will respond via the PM system if anyone is interested. It does give intriguing insight into RCVS 'thinking'.

RE: RCVS' latest tripwire

Richard Carter — Tue, 10 Apr 2018 09:17:16 GMT

RE: RCVS' latest tripwire

Bob Russell — Mon, 09 Apr 2018 12:30:07 GMT

How do we judge anyone's competence?

Some may be very obvious but does it require us to make this judgement? What happens if we get it wrong?

Clearly most of the time we will use commonsense therefore it may well be better not to put this requirement in writing.

Complicating things with written rules may be worse than leaving things as they are.

RE: RCVS' latest tripwire

Michael Woodhouse — Sun, 08 Apr 2018 14:16:04 GMT

I really don't see the problem here. To consent to anything you need to have capacity. The two are interwoven and cannot be pulled apart. Finding someone to give consent who has capacity is the obvious solution, but proceeding in the animal's best interests is the obvious solution, and the guidance is allowing for that.

If you speak to anyone in the human health sphere (is your wife a human doctor or am I imagining that?) then every time consent is spoken about capacity is discussed. This doesn't seem to be the case in the vet med sphere, discussion limited to informed consent.