How to apply for Advanced Practitioner status

When to apply

Applications are open from March to July each year. The deadline for all applications is 31 October.

What you’ll need to apply

You apply for Advanced Practitioner status on MyRCVS.

To complete your application, you will need:

• A completed reference form from your referee(s) covering the previous five years
• A full five years of CPD records
• A covering letter explaining any pauses in your CPD or periods off the Register
• Details of your qualifications  
• Evidence you have completed the professional skills requirement
• Clinical governance statement with two examples of how you’ve applied it to your work

Applying for multiple designations?

You’ll need to apply separately for each designation and pay the application fee for each one. You’ll need:

• A referee for each designation you’re applying for
• Appropriate CPD hours linked to each designation – 125 hours each, on top of the 250 mandatory hours

How to fill in the application form

You’ll need to complete all questions and sections of the Advanced Practitioner status application form. You can save the form as you go along, but you can only move on to the next section once you’ve answered all the questions in the current one.

Initial qualifying questions

You’ll need to be able to answer yes to:

• Are you registered as a UK-practising member of the RCVS?  
• Have you had five full calendar years of experience in practice since graduation?

Name and qualification details

What type of qualification are you applying with?

This will prompt a drop-down list for you to select from:

• RCVS Certificate in Advanced Veterinary Practice
• RCVS Certificate
• Other ‘approved’ Qualification
• Other ‘non-approved’ Qualification

If you’re applying with an RCVS or ‘approved’ qualification, select it from the dropdown list. If your qualification is not on the ‘approved’ list, then you will need to select ‘other non-approved qualification’.

Take a look at the list of approved qualifications if you aren’t sure whether yours is on it.  

If you plan to apply with a ‘non-approved’ qualification, it will need to be assessed by our Education Committee before you can apply. We only assess them at certain times of year. Email [email protected] to submit your qualification and get details about timescales.  

Designation

Confirm the designation you’re applying for by selecting from the dropdown list.

Professional skills  

You will need to provide evidence that you’ve completed the professional skills requirement at the time of application. You will be asked whether you have completed a professional skills module and then prompted to upload your certificate of completion.

Case-based work  

These questions have been included to enable us to start to collect some background data. The information you provide here will not be taken into account when assessing your application.  

• Is your work primarily case-based? If it is, you will be prompted to answer some more questions:  
• What percentage of your working time do you spend working within the area of your designation?  
• Approximately how many cases per week in your designation would be primarily managed by you?  
• What type of cases in your designation do you see? (For example, primary care or referrals)

You will also be asked to self-certify that you have had primary responsibility for an average of 100 cases a year in your designated area for the last five years.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

You will be asked to enter:  

• The number of CPD hours you’ve recorded over the last five calendar years  
• The number of hours of CPD you’ve undertaken in your specialist area over this period

You’ll also be asked to give the RCVS and panel assessors permission to view your CPD record on 1CPD. We will not be able to see any reflections you have added on any of your activities.  

You will have the option to upload any other documents as evidence of CPD.  

You will not be required to provide certificates of attendance at CPD courses.

Reference  

As part of your application prep, you should have a completed questionnaire from your referee(s). Type in the name of your referee. You will then need to upload your reference questionnaire(s) and confirm that you have uploaded the relevant document(s).

Confirmation  

When you reach the end of the form, you will be asked to confirm that all details in the application are correct. Once confirmed, you will be able to select ‘submit’.

You will not be able to go back and make any changes once you have submitted your application. If you realise you’ve made an error in your application, email [email protected] and we will try to resolve the issue for you.  

Payment

Once submitted, you’ll be taken to a confirmation screen with details about how to pay your fee.

How to upload documents

For your application, you’ll need to upload a range of documents as supporting evidence. To do that:

• Click on ‘Add New Record’. A new window will open.  
• Type in a file name, for example, ‘Reference form’.  
• Click ‘browse’ to select the document from your computer. Once you have found the file, select it and click ‘open’.  
• The document name will appear next to the ‘browse’ button. Once it appears, click ‘attach’.  
• Once the document has been attached, you will have the option to view or remove it.  
• To add further attachments, click on ‘Save and New’ at the bottom of the window and repeat the process. Or, if you only need one attachment, click on ‘Save’.  
• You will then return to the main form. You will need to tick a box to confirm that you are ready to proceed. Once ticked, the next section of the form will load.