Jason Chuck
Dear colleagues,
Few reforms could reshape everyday practice quite like the Veterinary Services Bill 2026, now before the NSW Parliament. It would replace the 2003 Act and, for the first time, register veterinary nurses and technologists. It would also create a licensing pathway for mobile and telehealth services and modernize how complaints are handled. The NSW Government has framed the Bill as a response to burnout, workforce shortages and poor access to care in regional and remote areas. Those are pressures every one of us recognizes, whichever state we practice in, and reforms in one jurisdiction often inform those in other jurisdictions before too long.
For practice owners, nurse registration is the centerpiece. Defined qualifications, scopes of practice and supervision requirements should give us the confidence to delegate more. They should also give our nurses the recognition and career pathways they have long deserved. In its submission to the review of the regulatory framework, the AVA strongly supports registration, while cautioning that the cost of expanded regulation shouldn’t fall disproportionately on veterinarians’ registration fees. You can read more about the AVA’s submission here: www.ava.com.au/advocacy/ava-submission-championing-a-modern-sustainable-veterinary-regulatory-framework-for-nsw
North America offers useful context. The AVMA’s Veterinary Business and Economic Forum that I had the privilege to attend online earlier this month, brings together practice leaders and economists to work through exactly these business challenges. For years, AVMA research has linked practice revenue, and technicians’ job satisfaction, to how fully technicians get to use the skills they trained for. The American Animal Hospital Association’s guidelines go further. They report that under-use is a leading reason technicians leave the profession, and that practices where vets rarely do tasks a technician could perform see an average 36% revenue increase.
The lesson for us is that registration alone won’t change much. The gains come when practices redesign workflows so that nurses do what they are trained to do. That means nurse-led consults and anesthesia, triage, client education and, increasingly, telehealth. Freeing veterinarians for the work only they can do benefits patients, clients, the team and the bottom line.
Getting this right is also central to building workplaces people want to stay in. The AVA’s Great Veterinary Workplaces framework gives practices a practical way to benchmark their culture against ten pillars, including job design, and growth and development. You can find out more here: www.ava.com.au/gvw
My encouragement to every owner, in NSW and beyond, is to start the conversation with your team now. Ask your nurses what more they could take on, and what would help them do it. The legislation may set the framework, but our practice cultures will decide whether it succeeds.
Warm regards,
Jason Chuck
VBG President
