Styles of Veterinary Regulation

This project is funded by the ESRC (Grant No: RES-000-22-2578) and runs from 2008 - 2010.


Background

The main aims of the project are to investigate the importance and practice of veterinary regulation. Veterinary practices conduct regulatory inspections on behalf of the Government, such as conducting tests for bovine tuberculosis. The burden of conducting regulatory work for the government has increased in recent years. Conducting this regulatory work can be of vital economic importance for veterinary practices in rural areas. However, there are a number of threats to the continued role of local vets in regulating animal disease such as the withdrawal of regulatory functions and deprofessionalisation (e.g. use of lay testers).

The overall objective of this project is to establish:

- The value of veterinarians in conducting animal health regulation;
- The relationship between veterinary regulation and the provision of veterinary services in rural areas.
- The core skills and expertise needed to conduct animal health regulation;

The project will take bovine tuberculosis testing as a case study of veterinary regulation/inspection. Specifically, the project has two research aims:

1) To examine the importance of veterinary regulation. Research questions include:

- How do practices benefit from conducting regulation?
- How does regulation work fit in with the provision of other farm animal veterinary services?
- How does the conduct of TB testing (regulation) fit in with the professional identity of “being a vet”?
- What “roles” do vets perform in their work and how do they manage those roles in different settings?
- How does regulation contribute to their job satisfaction?


2) To examine the practice of veterinary regulation. Research questions include:

- What are the range of skills required to effectively perform regulation?
- How and where are these skills learned? How do vets use these skills to in practice?
- How do vets communicate with farmers to ensure that regulation is effective? What sorts of communicative interaction occurs on farms? What are the communicative skills that vets possess?
- How does regulation relate to the provision of other veterinary services? Does regulation also help to resolve other animal health issues?
- What are the “styles of regulation” used by vets? How do they relate to the practice of regulation?

Previous Research - is there any?

Social scientific approaches have been used in many other policy areas to research the conduct of regulation. Previous studies have examined the styles of regulation for problems such as river pollution and food hygiene. Studies from the sociology of health have focussed on the patient-doctor relationship. Despite the importance of vets, there is little social science research that examines their regulatory role and only one study that examines the interaction between vets and their clients, although this related to companion animals.

Methodology

The project employs a comparative case study approach using qualitative methods.

As the subject of the research is veterinary regulation, the focus of the research will be on a key regulatory task for vets: that of testing for bovine tuberculosis in cattle. The study will also examine other routine veterinary work in order to compare the two types of work.

It is intended that three veterinary practices in different parts of England and Wales will be studied during the length of the research. Ethnographic methods involving participant observation will be used to workshadow vets within each of the practices as they conduct their duties.