Info for the Emergency Services

The Emergency Services Protocol is a set of general operating procedures for responding to emergency incidents involving horses.

 

If a horse is injured, or thought to be injured, a veterinary surgeon, ideally an Equine Veterinary Surgeon from the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) Directory of Equine Veterinary Practices, should be summoned unless the horse owner's own Veterinary Surgeon is already in attendance or en route.

Vets from the BEVA Directory will work under the Incident Commander and can support the rescue team by in the following ways:

· By providing welfare advice
· Administering sedation/anaesthesia to facilitate animal and human safety
· Stabilising an injured animal
· Humanely destroying a severely injured animal. 

Even if the horse has no apparent injuries, a vet should examine it to determine its overall condition and check for less obvious injuries. It may also be necessary for the vet to sedate the animal in order to make the rescue safer for all involved.

The absence of an animal’s owner must not preclude the immediate attendance of a vet. In the event that the owner is untraceable and all efforts to obtain payment have failed, the costs of attendance, initial treatment, and if necessary euthanasia, plus transport to a more appropriate premises for further treatment will be reimbursed from the Equine Rescue Fund administered by BEVA.

The emergency services should not incur any costs for calling out a vet from the Directory of Equine Veterinary Practices. Funding enquiries should be directed to BEVA Tel. 01638 723555.

The latest BEVA Directory of Equine Veterinary Surgeons is available from this page.

The original Protocol document has been reviewed and is also available from this page.

 

Animal Rescue Practitioners Forum

BEVA provides veterinary advice to the Animal Rescue Practitioners Forum. This national group was set up with the support of the Chief Fire Officers Association and is led by Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service. It was established in 2008 in recognition of the importance the fire and rescue service now places on firefighter and public safety at animal incidents.

The Forum has already agreed accredited training programmes for firefighters and animal rescue teams.

Up-to-date information on progress of the Forum's work can be found on the CFOA website: http://www.cfoa.org.uk.

To join a Forum meeting, please contact Carole Hobbs at Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service: carole.hobbs@hantsfire.gov.uk Tel: 023 8062 6836. 

The Forum's terms of reference can be downloaded from this page.