British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) Congress 2025

BARTA provided a skills workshop at the British Equine Veterinary Association annual Congress last week. BEVA has been instrumental in development of animal rescue protocols through their “Safer Horse Rescue” initiative, a collaborative effort with emergency services.

This program has successfully established a comprehensive directory of equine veterinarians and an emergency fund to ensure vets are compensated for their crucial involvement in incidents involving non-client animals.

The next critical phase of this initiative focuses on clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of veterinary professionals across various incident types and levels. A key aspect of this involves the integration of Registered Veterinary Nurses (RVNs) into vet-led teams.

This strategic inclusion aims to enhance casualty-centered rescue operations and streamline the management of complex tactical elements during equine emergencies, especially amidst the competing priorities of multiple emergency responders.

Multi animal incident scenarios were discussed and opportunities for RVN’s to practice the type of casualty care that their role is well suited to, releasing vets to carry out triage and assessment of further casualties and discuss resourcing and tactics with rescue team leaders.

beva.org.uk/Career-support/Nurses/BEVA-BARTA-Guidelines