Clinical Excellence
We recommend and provide the best clinical care every time.
We provide the highest quality end-to-end healthcare for animals. As a large corporate, we can be across all of the latest developments in veterinary care and ensure best practice is disseminated throughout the company.
Clinical Governance Framework
CVS Group has adopted a new Clinical Governance Framework, a system through which we will hold ourselves accountable for improving the quality of our services and cultivate a culture in which clinical care will continue to improve. Unlike previous veterinary approaches to clinical governance, our new framework focuses on creating the environment in which high standards of care can thrive.
It represents the first dedicated veterinary clinical governance framework for those involved in animal healthcare in the UK. Similar frameworks have been adopted in human healthcare, including by the NHS, but a different approach has been required for the veterinary profession.
The components of our Clinical Governance Framework are:
- A definition of what is meant by the term “Quality of Care” within animal healthcare in a way that can be individualised to every situation.
- A description of the six pillars that represent our organisation’s clinical priorities, namely Clinical Effectiveness; Research and Development; Ethical Integrity and Sustainability; Information Sharing and Collaboration; Education and Training; Quality Improvement and Patient Safety.
- The five values central to our culture of clinical improvement that CVS colleagues will aspire to, namely: a just culture, accountability, inclusive leadership, teamwork, and systems thinking.
Our Clinical Governance Framework will act as a guiding light to our clinicians as they give the best possible care to animals. It is the outcome of 12 months’ work involving subject matter experts from across CVS.
We will be rolling out learning materials on our Knowledge Hub learning platform that will support a network of Clinical Improvement Advocates who will work with the clinicians providing care in our 500 practices.
A new governance structure will also ensure that our company delivers on our six pillar priorities including:
- An Integrated Care Council – responsible for the review and oversight of the clinical governance framework.
- Clinical Advisory Committees involving frontline staff in the company’s main areas of activity that will evaluate new and existing knowledge, identify education and training needs; and ensure standards take into account clinical and ethical considerations.
Altogether 150 colleagues are already involved in that structure.
Embedding Excellence
Our Regional Clinical Leads support all of our practices in achieving the highest clinical standards and help them to implement clinical quality improvements.
Our Advanced Clinical Services Network of over 30 peripatetic practitioners (both vets and veterinary nurses) supports colleagues in primary care practices to make advanced treatments available to clients that would otherwise necessitate referral elsewhere. Our ACSN clinicians hold advanced qualifications and are available across each of our practice regions. We plan to further expand this network in the coming years.
Our vet-to-vet telemedicine service Vet Oracle (our virtual vet hospital) has continued to grow to offer specialist interpretation of results and practical virtual assistance to our vets on a global scale. It now has six specialisms: cardiology, dermatology, medicine, neurology, oncology, radiology. Vet Oracle allows our practices to have specialist input into their cases. These specialists guide our practitioners to the next advanced level of their skills. The service considered 13,000 cases in 2022.
We have 9 specialist referral hospitals to provide multi-disciplinary care for the more complex and urgent cases. They have exceptional facilities and exceptional diagnositics. The sites allow our specialists colleagues to focus in on their specialist area and offer a higher level of specialist care to our clients. They also allow the development of new specialist treatments and cutting edge clinical advances. We continue to invest in advances at these sites
Quality Improvement
We are committed to evidence-based medicine and have a robust quality improvement programme.
In order to provide the best possible clinical care, we continue to focus on helping to drive a standard of excellence in the profession.
We are the only veterinary company to publish an annual Quality Improvement Report which outlines our approach to further enhancing clinical standards, underpinned by evidence-based medicine. It highlights what we can learn from and where we can make improvements.
We continuously monitor our clinical standards against our quality improvement frameworks for clinicians and practices. We utilise the RCVS Practice Standard Scheme as an improvement tool, and clinical data is provided to front-line teams to help them achieve their improvement goals within the context of their practice.