TITLE
PROTECTION
Professional titles for veterinary nurses/technicians and allied animal healthcare practitioners are not protected by law in New Zealand.
What is Title Protection?
Title protection ensures certain professional titles are legally safeguarded, allowing only those meeting legislated standards to use titles like 'Registered Nurse,' 'Medical Doctor,' or 'Barrister.' This promotes accountability, professional integrity, and consistent standards of care.
Why Does Title Protection Matter?
Currently, the title 'veterinary nurse' is not legally protected in New Zealand, meaning anyone can call themselves a veterinary nurse regardless of qualifications. The same is true for ‘veterinary technologists’ and ‘veterinary technicians’.
Title protection helps ensure only qualified professionals represent themselves as registered practitioners, enhancing public trust and animal safety.
What Does This Mean for You?
Within New Zealand veterinary practice, only veterinarians have title protection and statutory regulation. However, AVPRC’s voluntary regulatory framework is a statutory instrument protecting the title of 'Registered'—such as 'Registered Veterinary Nurse'. This means certain professional titles can be safeguarded through voluntary regulation so only those meeting AVPRC standards and holding current Annual Practicing Certificates (APC) may use titles like 'Registered Veterinary Nurse,' 'Registered Veterinary Technologist,' or 'Registered Veterinary Technician.' This promotes accountability, professional integrity, and consistent standards of care.
If you wish to use a protected title within animal healthcare, you must meet the necessary standards for registration and maintain a current APC with AVPRC. Misusing a protected title, or implying registration without authorisation, has consequences for any future registration with AVPRC and could undermine public trust.
Guidelines for Professional Titles in New Zealand
To protect our communities, and to maintain consistency with overseas titles, here are some suggested guidelines for using allied veterinary professional titles in New Zealand:
The term veterinary in the title should be reserved for practitioners who have a formal, NZQA or industry accepted, qualification in veterinary nursing, or veterinary technology – explicitly, 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.
The term 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 term veterinary technologist should be reserved for practitioners who have a formal industry accepted qualification in veterinary technology at Level 7 or above.
The term 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 have a current Annual Practicing Certificate with AVPRC. For example, Registered Veterinary Nurse or RVN, or Registered Veterinary Technician/Technologist or RVT
International differences
Many professional healthcare roles such as physicians, veterinarians, and nurses all have clear professional identity, and consistency of title around the world. For animal healthcare professionals like veterinary nurses and veterinary technicians, titles are not so clear, partly due to inconsistent or non-existent regulation and protection of title.
Not only is this confusing to our own profession, but it’s also confusing to the public, employers, and prospective students. Aligning international trends is important for our professional identity and to clarify international standards of education and regulation.
United Kingdom
There is no title protection for veterianry nurses in the UK but the The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) registration process and robust disciplinary process acts as a statutory instrument for title protection.
Qualified veterinary nurses are known as veterinary nurses, those on the register are known as a Registered Veterinary Nurse (RVN).
Qualified nursing assistants/care assistants are known as veterinary care assistants (VCA), or animal nursing assistants (ANA).
The representative body for veterinary nurses is the British Veterinary Nurse Association (BVNA).
If you’re an overseas qualified veterinary nurse and are thinking of working in the UK, find more information here.