The BSAVA has announced that Nottingham Trent University will be the accrediting body for the new Postgraduate Surgery and Medicine Certificates being launched in January 2012.

BSAVA says the planning for this new education initiative has been exhaustive, ensuring that the needs of the profession and the individual vet can be met by a provider with an excellent legacy in veterinary education. And also, an organisation with a genuine interest in seeing the highest scientific standards are matched by a relevant, cost-effective, and accessible programme that fits with life in practice today. To that end, finding the right validation partner was a crucial part of the planning.

Dr Frances Barr, BSAVA Academic Director, said: "This is an exciting new venture in postgraduate CPD, and will ultimately lead to qualifications which are achievable for those in practice and directly relates to their experience. Yet of course, these qualifications must remain challenging enough to merit the respect of the profession and meet the standards of the clinical excellence we all want to see.

"We are confident that BSAVA is the provider to deliver just this, but finding the right partner to validate the programmes was especially important. We want to know that we can move forward with the support and backing of an accrediting body that encourages academic excellence and at the same time understands the need to remain relevant and engaging to busy professionals."

These new qualifications are primarily aimed at veterinary surgeons in small animal practice, who have a particular interest in small animal medicine or surgery. So busy professionals is exactly who they are designed for. This appeals particularly to BSAVA President Andrew Ash, who as well as running the Association heads a six site practice in Sussex. He said: "As an employer I see more and more people who want some recognition for the time they spend fulfilling their professional CPD requirement - and with these discipline-based certificates I can see a way that at any point in your career you can now be rewarded with not only a greater breadth of knowledge and confidence, but with a certificate to show for your efforts.

"I am a great advocate of continual education, and having made a commitment to postgraduate study myself in the past I know how important supported learning is, and how essential it is to have an environment that both acknowledges your other commitments and gives you the support to achieve your ambitions. We are determined to do that.

"Of course I am delighted that this is being launched in my year as President. I am even more delighted that we have Frances Barr to lead this - her experience and enthusiasm is as impressive in this role as it was when she was BSAVA president".

Gill Richards, Director of Professional Development at Nottingham Trent chaired the validation visit at Woodrow House. She said: "Nottingham Trent is especially interested in working with professions in this way to help ensure the quality of provision on postgraduate education for people at all stages of their careers. It was our pleasure to confirm validation today and we look forward to working with the team at BSAVA. It is unusual for anyone to receive the number of commendations that were made today, and what has impressed us most about BSAVA is the impressive quality of the teaching team and materials, and the innovative response to meeting a national demand for a course of this quality".

Enrolment will opening October. The courses will be limited to 30 in each programme. Anyone interested in enrolling for one of these certificate programmes can email academicdirector@bsasva.com or call 01452 726700.

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