New vet nurses now qualify to work in Britain

New vet nurses now qualify to work in Britain

Veterinary nursing graduates graduating at the end of the year will be the first from the University to enter their careers with a qualification recently awarded British equivalency by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.

The University is one of two institutions in New Zealand that offers this equivalency, through its two-year Diploma in Veterinary Nursing, and it means that graduates can automatically register as veterinary nurses in Britain. Practicing vet nurses who previously graduated through Massey will also be granted equivalency.

Hayley Squance, director of the University’s Veterinary Nursing Programme, says a significant proportion of the nurses who graduate from Massey each year seek work overseas.

“Massey veterinary nurses have a good reputation for their academic ability and veterinary knowledge as well as their readiness to work hard,” Ms Squance says. “In Britain there are a lot of satellite hospitals to main hospital centres, and vets see comparatively more companion animals than they do here, largely due to a huge trend to take out pet insurance.”

She says the rigorous equivalency application to the Royal College took two years, in which the Royal College inspected all aspects of the University’s Veterinary Nursing programme, from curricula content to the ways in which students were examined. “This is an asset to our programme and is likely to attract more national and international students to the programme.”

She says that previously vet nurses could work in Britain as unregistered nurses, but this often restricted the type of work they could do in a practice.

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