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Guidelines

Our free resources will introduce you to different QI techniques, and help you understand the processes you can put in place to help improve outcomes.

Guidelines CPD Course (CPD: 20 minutes)

 You can find courses on:

These links will open in a new window and require registration with our dedicated online learning portal.

This tutorial introduces the concepts of Evidence-Based Veterinary Medicine (EBVM), and aims to give you a foundation from which you can start to apply EBVM to your own veterinary work. 

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Tools to assist in creating guidelines

A handy infographic that explains the process of creating local practice guidelines. Ideal to print! [PDF 168KB] (Updated July 2022).

You can use this template to structure your own practice guidelines. Once downloaded, please 'save as' and reopen from your saved location [Word 53KB] (Updated August 2022).

We have created an example of how to find and use evidence with our template to structure your own practice guidelines. Based on creating guidelines for feline hypertension in practice, this example will show you how to use evidence and go through, step by step, the points you should consider. [PDF 188KB] (Updated July 2022)

Adapted from the original IHI framework, this resource is intended to support leaders within the veterinary sector in introducing the Joy in Work concept to their teams. The conversation guide will support you in setting up initial and continuing conversations with your team to identify any workplace frustrations, or ‘pebbles in your shoes’, and to engage and empower the team to identify potential solutions. [PDF 374KB] (Published February 2022)

Contextualised care is an approach to cases which takes into consideration factors such as the animals circumstances and owner values. The ability to have a conversation around a challenging decision can help to evaluate such cases, reducing stress for veterinary teams and facilitate communication with owners. This conversation guide is to help the veterinary team identify any areas of support that the pet owner may require when diagnosing and treating their pet. [Word 53KB] (Published October 2022)

Use this poster to display your Quality Improvement projects, plan further projects and track their progress. You can use this poster as a focal point for your Quality Improvement discussions. This poster is designed to be professionally printed, and laminated, on A2 paper. [PDF 61KB] (Updated June 2024)

To order your professionally printed and laminated A2 discussion guide, copy and paste the URL into your internet browser or visit https://www.serviceprint.net/product/qi-discussion-guides/

This document included examples of Quality Improvement principles and tools which can be implemented within your practice to form your clinical governance plan. You should adapt this for your own practice, or local circumstances. Once downloaded, please 'save as' and reopen from your saved location [Word Doc 174KB] (Published July 2021).

 

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Published guidelines

This list of published guidelines can be used to signpost you to clinical guidelines that may be of use. These guidelines are available online and have been selected because they have been created by experts in the relevant field and are based on published evidence.

Small animal

Equine

Farm animal

Poultry

Fish

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Example guidelines

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Guideline Case Examples

Anaesthesia and surgery

In this award-winning case example, the team at Vets Now identified room for improvement in the care of dystocia cases. A working group was created to support clinicians with decision-making and improve patient welfare by using audit and benchmarking data to inform guidelines and resources relevant to care provided by Vets Now Ltd. The level of engagement in the audit highlighted team-wide commitment to improving patient outcomes [PDF 335KB] (Published January 2023).

You can also read the full article in the Vet Record.

This case example shows how one practice created guidelines for the use of suture material during feline spays [PDF 620KB] (Published July 2019).

Inpatient care

This award-winning case example shows how Plymouth Veterinary Group created guidelines for performing cytology on patients presenting with ear pathology, utilising the whole teams’ skillset to improve the patient journey for a common and often persistent presentation. The application showed a bottom-up approach – increasing training, utilising RVN skills and demonstrating strong evidence that their changes led to an overall decrease in the number of antibiotics prescribed [PDF 275KB] (Published June 2021).

This award-winning case example shows how the Blue Cross developed guidelines within the practice to deliver a consistent approach to diagnosis and treatment throughout the charity for more than 60 common syndromes and conditions. Alison Thomas BVSc CertSAM MRCVS won an RCVS Knowledge Champion Award in 2019 for her work in this area [PDF 7436KB] (Updated December 2019).

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Updated 11/11/22