A body of vets are exploring the option to force an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) of RCVS council to demand detailed answers to urgent questions surrounding telemedicine.
Members of the group – who are all bitterly opposed to remote prescribing – said they were not satisfied with the responses they received to their questions at the RCVS annual meeting held on Royal College Day in London on 12 July.
Questions
At that meeting, the RCVS took the unprecedented step of addressing “multiple communiques” on the topic submitted by email on the eve of the annual meeting, as well as answering questions from the floor on the day. Traditionally, only questions from the floor are heard.
When the annual meeting agenda came to Item 3, “Questions”, outgoing RCVS president Amanda Boag told her audience: “At this point, we ordinarily take questions on the Annual Report and Statement of Accounts from veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses who are here with us today.
“Before we come to that, however, I should like to address a series of questions we received from a number of members by email yesterday afternoon. There is no precedent for dealing with multiple communiques so close to the annual meeting itself, nor do I wish or intend to establish one today.
“However, I am happy to deal with these questions now, as they reveal some concern and confusion about council’s recent discussions on telemedicine and remote prescribing that I think would be useful to address directly.”
Key points
Some of those questions stemmed from an RCVS council session held in private on 13 June, which was criticised by some vets for taking important decisions on telemedicine from “behind closed doors”.
Ms Boag told the annual meeting time was short as the RCVS awards ceremony was scheduled to start shortly, so the RCVS had necessarily provided a summary of the key points raised by the correspondents, and the college’s responses.
She promised the letters and responses would be published in full, and be available online in the annual meeting minutes.
Heavily edited transcripts from some correspondents were then read aloud to the annual meeting, along with the RCVS’ official response.
- Read the full story in the 29 July issue of Veterinary Times.
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