Culture change needed as vet injuries played down and ‘discussed like pub stories and banter’

Injuries sustained by equine vets get “discussed like pub stories”, as new research highlights concerning attitudes towards kicks and bites, and the need for a culture change.

H&H reported that CVS Equine vets and nurses will wear safety helmets when handling horses. This was a result of research published by the University of Liverpool on 25 April, which found that more than 90% of vets had been injured while working (news, 29 May).

The study also found that one in four recent injuries required hospital attendance and 16% resulted in a fracture. The most common injuries were kicks to the leg and head, and although 58% of injured vets took more than a week to physically recover from an injury, only 6.7% took more than a week off work.

Lead researcher John Tulloch, who published a paper in January on a lack of injury reporting in the industry, told H&H the work considered events leading up to an injury – and the behaviour of those injured afterwards.

“The aim was to identify areas where we can try and minimise the number of injuries occurring in future but also minimise the severity,” said Dr Tulloch.
“The second most common injury was a kick to the head and that in itself is quite terrifying. If there’s any way we can help stop those things happening, or reduce the severity, that’s going to be a really good thing.”

One vet quoted in the study fractured a foot and instead of taking time off, cut a hole in their shoe and carried on doing the job.

“There are lots of instances like that where they should have stopped working or done desk work until they were better. Some of that was to do with the guilt of burdening colleagues, which is understandable, but also a sense of inevitability that injuries are always going to happen when you’re working with horses,” said Dr Tulloch.

“That shows a culture that needs tweaking, because if you’re injured, you’re much more likely to get injured again and you’re increasing the risk to others around you.”

Dr Tulloch said creating a culture change is “challenging” when there is an acceptance of injury.

“I know, from working in the vet world, injuries are sometimes discussed like pub stories – and because you’ve come out the other end and you’re ok, it’s talked about in that bantering kind of way, but without necessarily the reflection side of ‘What can I do differently, how can we improve this so others in future don’t get injured?’,” he said.

“That’s where CVS’s hat policy is really good, but the main drive will need to be that change in culture, and adopting personal protective equipment is part of the bigger picture to get that attitude and behavioural change.

“There has been lots of focus around rider safety, cross-country and road safety, and keeping the general equestrian injury-free – and I think the same effort now probably needs to be put on vets and others working with horses.”

Lucy Grieve, the British Equine Veterinary Association’s projects officer, told H&H the study “serves as another reminder of the dangers faced by vets working with large animals”.

“While we know there are risks which cannot be completely avoided, there are measures we can take to minimise the overall chance of injury as well as the severity if it were to happen,” she said.

“As Tulloch et al highlight, there is still a ‘c’est la vie’ attitude to injury in the farming and equestrian industries, which isn’t helping us learn from mistakes. If we want people to be safer and horses to be calmer, we have to view incidents, including near-misses, with the respect they deserve. Why did they happen and how can they be prevented in future?”.

Miss Grieve said this change will only happen if “we start recording, discussing and examining those situations properly”.

“Then we can start to learn, employ appropriate techniques and put measures in place. This may include better training for staff and clients, which many have already undertaken, whether it’s adding to the 120,000 views of BEVA’s ‘Don’t break your vet’ YouTube videos, demonstrating training techniques to help horses and their handlers to undertake routine procedures from clipping and loading to worming and injecting – or vets and nurses completing BEVA’s online modular ‘Hold Your Horses’, created by vet and specialist in equine veterinary behaviour Gemma Pearson to provide a course to learn about equine behavioural science and apply techniques in practice to help their patients’ welfare and improve the safety of veterinary teams in their day-to-day work.

“There is no doubt that carrying out veterinary work in a suitable environment with appropriate facilities and necessary equipment, which may include hats and steel toecap boots, will help prevent people sustaining injuries that could range from minor wounds to life-changing, or even fatal.”

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