Getting the team back together

This edition is the first to have a section for nurses and SQPs with welcome contributions from Pam Mosedale and Ian Wright addressing organisational skills and quality improvements, and internal parasites. Pam and Ian bring a wealth of experience in these areas and this information will be of interest and value to the whole practice team. I know that nurses and SQPs will also find the material from David Rendle and Jo Ireland on obesity and quality of life assessment of great interest, as will I.

The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) outbreak has caused us to modify our working practices to maintain social or rather working distances with additional strategies to protect our staff, clients and businesses. It did, however, for many of us break up our established teams with us working in semi-isolation, in pairs as a single epidemiological unit or totally separately, with some team members furloughed and some working from home. We obviously need to remain vigilant and careful and we will need to adapt moving forward, but re-establishing our practice teams is going to be important to share the workload and the stresses and strains of practice life, as well as sharing in the joys of success and the sadness of loss. Re-engagement with the team, I think, will become easier with the opportunity for everyone to get back together face-to-face. We need to remain mindful of our team's mental health and wellbeing. The RCVS Mind Matters Initiative is a good place for help and resources and if you are not already aware I draw your attention to the new free mental health webinar series aiming to tackle issues affecting veterinary team wellbeing.