LEGISLATION AND PROFESSIONAL GUIDELINES
Professional Guidelines
Regulatory guidelines establish the minimum standards for professional behavior in the animal healthcare environment. These guidelines serve as a foundation for ethical decision-making and help standardise conduct across the profession. Statutory codes of conduct, enforced through legislated regulation, set the minimum legal standards for professional conduct.
The following guidelines are set by the Allied Veterinary Professional Regulatory Council (AVPRC) for allied veterinary professionals registered with the AVPRC. As a voluntary regulatory body, the AVPRC enforces these guidelines professionally. However, since the regulation of allied veterinary professionals is not statutory, these guidelines are not legislated.
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The AVPRC has set ethical principles that are the foundation for ethical care and service by veterinary nurses and allied veterinary professionals in Aotearoa New Zealand. These are not legislated but may be in the future when there is legislated regulation of allied veterinary professionals.
Other available guidelines include:
The Veterinary Council of New Zealand has a Code of Professional Conduct for veterinarians that provides legislated conduct guidelines for veterinarians.
The New Zealand Veterinary Nursing Association has Professional Guidelines that suggest the optimum standards that allied veterinary professionals should aim to achive.
The Large Animal Veterinary Technicians group of the NZVA has Professional Guidelines that set out the professional conduct and ethical standards expected of Large Animal Veterinary Technicians (LAVTs).
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The AVPRC has set guidelines for registration on the AVPRC register. These include:
Proof of qualification (must be on the list of approved qualifications).
Proof of identification.
Proof of New Zealand residency.
Proof of ongoing fitness to practice is required to maintain registration. See below for fitness to practice criteria.
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Registration with AVPRC requires an annual practicing certificate that ensure fitness to practice. This process helps ensure allied professionals are competent and safe. Fitness to practice criteria include:
Recency of practice – if an allied professional has not practiced for more than three consecutive years, or is seeking to work with species or skills that are not of their original qualification, or range of experience, it is recommended that the practitioner seeks additional support and supervision to ensure competency and animal welfare.
Competency – the Graduate Competencies outline criteria that graduates of approved allied professional qualifications must meet to qualify. These competencies also provide a good guideline for practitioners to maintain to ensure optimal fitness to practice.
Continuing education – continuing professional development (CPD) ensures currency and relevance of clinical practice. There are many ways to achieve ongoing continuing education requirements. For more on CPD for allied professionals, see the NZVNA website here.
Professionalism – ensuring that the practitioner considers the following aspects that influence professionalism and fitness to practice:
Mental and physical wellbeing
Addiction issues
Offences under the law, or disciplinary proceedings by any authority
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In accordance with relevant legislation, and the Veterinary Council of New Zealand practicing standards, these Scopes of Practice provide guidance for the roles, responsibilities, and limitations to practice for registered allied veterinary/animal healthcare professionals in New Zealand.
Veterinary Nurses/Technicians/Technologists
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In New Zealand, veterinarians are the only member of the animal healthcare team who are regulated under the Veterinarians Act 2005. New Zealand has no legal regulation of veterinary nurses or other allied veterinary professions. Subsequently, there is no specific list of allowed tasks for veterinary nurses or other allied veterinary professionals.
However, secondary legislation under the Animal Welfare Act 1999 outlines some specific tasks permitted to be carried out by non-veterinarians. See the Animal Welfare (Care and Procedures) Amendment Regulations 2020 under part 2 Significant or painful procedures for more information on these specific tasks.
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To protect our communities, and to maintain consistency with overseas titles, the AVPRC has set criteria for how professional animal healthcare titles should be used in New Zealand:
The term veterinary in the title should be reserved for practitioners who have a formal veterinary nursing, or veterinary technology qualification that is NZQA approved with a minimum of 160 credits at Level 5 or above (or equivalent). These professionals usually have a broad scope of practice and responsibility in animal healthcare provision.
The term veterinary should be restricted to qualifications that enforce a minimum of 160 credits at Level 5 or above and that have a broad scope of practice covering all general clinical practice areas for the species.
The title veterinary nurse should be reserved for practitioners who have an industry accepted qualification that includes the terms veterinary nursing and that follows convention in point 2 above.
The title veterinary technologist should be reserved for practitioners who have a formal industry accepted qualification in veterinary technology at Level 7 or above.
The title veterinary technician should be reserved for practitioners who have formal, industry accepted, qualification that includes the terms veterinary technology and that follows convention in point 2 above.
Use of the term registered in front of a professional title is limited for use only by those who are currently on a verified veterinary register, and are in good standing. For example, Registered Veterinary Nurseor RVN, or Registered Veterinary Technician/Technologistor RVT
See Title Protection for more on professional titles.
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Social media and other forms of informal communication such as text messaging allow people to connect, communicate and interact in a number of positive and negative ways. These conduct guidelines inform standards around acceptable behaviour when communicating digitally including but not limited to social media, via instant messaging, text, and email.
All practicing and student veterinary nurses/technicians, and other allied veterinary professionals should behave accordingly:
1. Always maintain confidentiality of information gained during professional activities.
2. Always maintain confidentiality and privacy of client and practice information by not discussing individuals or practice information.
3. Always maintain respectful behaviour towards colleagues, by avoiding discussing colleagues. Do not be dismissive, indifferent, aggressive, discriminatory, judgemental, or abusive toward colleagues.
4. Always maintain professional boundaries between yourself and clients, their whanau, and friends.
5. Always maintain a high standard of professional and personal behaviour in all forms of communication.
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Click here for a list of some currently published guidance for veterinary professionals. Current as of Feb 2024.
This link goes to the page on the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine with a list of all of their consensus statements for the last 20 years.
This link at FECAVA has a master list of industry concensus statements.
Acts of Legislation
Acts of legislation are minimum legally allowed standards. They have been established to manage identified risks to public safety, and animal welfare. There are a number of types of legislation relevant to animal healthcare. Knowing how to use this legilslation is important for practicing professionals.
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Primary Legislation relevant to veterinary professionals in Aotearoa New Zealand include:
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What is secondary legislation?
Secondary legislation is law made by someone other than Parliament or under a power that Parliament has formally delegated in a particular Act. Secondary legislation can have titles like “regulations”, “rules”, and “Orders-in-Council”.
Why is this important?
Much of the detail about legislative limits for veterinary nurses and AVPs is located in secondary legislation so it is important to be able to know where to look to find necessary guidance.
Every Act on the legislation.govt.nz website has a new Secondary legislation tab that provides information about any secondary legislation made under that Act. If there is secondary legislation published on the NZ Legislation website under that Act, it is listed under the tab.
Not all secondary legislation is available from the NZ Legislation website. Some secondary legislation is drafted by other agencies and published on their website or in the NZ Gazette
What secondary legislation is most important for veterinary professionals?
Secondary legislation that is particularly relevant to veterinary professions include these regulations that outline many painful or significant procedures that non-veterinarians can perform:
For more on legislative guidelines for minimum practicing standards in veterinary practice see this information by the Veterinary Council of New Zealand.