VETPARTNERS is celebrating the success of our practice teams after a new report revealed excellent surgical outcomes for cats, dogs and rabbits undergoing neutering across our UK practices.
Data shows that 93% of patients experienced no or only minor problems post-operatively in 2024, compared to 92.1% in 2021.
The results, which have been praised by the veterinary group, are included in its first Optimising Surgical Outcomes Report published by the VetPartners Clinical Board. Read the full report here.
The findings are part of its Quality Improvement (QI) work around surgical outcomes – a key area of focus for the veterinary group and reflect the amazing work carried out in practices.
The data was gathered from VetPartners’ practices across the UK, reflecting increased engagement with post-op coding – crucial to enable future work of this kind – with the proportion of procedures coded by teams in 2024 increasing by 29% compared to the previous years. To date, this has allowed the collection of data from more than 27,000 coded surgeries.
VetPartners Director of Clinical Research and Excellence in Practice Dr Rachel Dean, pictured left, said: “We are incredibly proud of the work done across our practices to progress surgical outcomes for routine neutering procedures as it is of great importance to our patients, our clients and our colleagues in practice.
“We’re delighted to be able to share with our teams the fantastic results they have achieved together, thanks to the care they give to their patients every day and their skills, and there is an opportunity to continue improvement. This data supports our practice teams to understand where they are now and how they could further improve.
“Moving forward we are aiming to continue this great work across the whole group and also expand the focus beyond neutering to other procedures. This will help us to identify areas where clinical discussions and audit cycles have progressed practice, so we can share it with the whole team.
“We also want to share our work with the wider veterinary profession and pet owning community to generate further discussion and create new partnerships to help more professionals, owners and pets.”
The report also showcases new resources created by the Clinical Board to support teams in optimising the surgical safety of patients, including educational resources on pain scoring and innovative approaches to pain relief, brachycephalic pre-oxygenation, drugs to help fearful cats and dogs in practice, promoting stress-free cat visits, improving patients’ post-operative mental wellbeing and a decision-making guide for castrating male dogs.
VetPartners has also supported two key projects which will have an impact on the profession and the environment.
Ash Tree Vets in Leicestershire carried out an audit of local anaesthetic usage that led to a reduction in the use of anaesthetic greenhouse gases during routine surgical castration.
VetPartners’ Sustainability and Clinical Board teams are also collaborating in an ongoing project to explore whether using disposable drapes in routine surgeries gives different patient outcomes compared to using washable, reusable drapes which have less lifetime environmental impact. Read more about Project Drapes here:
- Main photo: Hampden Vets Clinical Director Luke Cottis, who is C0-Chair of the VetPartners Small Animal Clinical Board, and RVNs Ailsa Kemp and Vix Horrocks, with the Optimising Surgical Outcomes Report.
For media enquiries, please contact Amanda Little, VetPartners PR and Communications Director, at [email protected] or 07970 198492
