SAVSNET

We collect electronic health data from a large portion of veterinary practices and laboratories across the UK. Extracts are used by scientists to help improve the health of the nation's pet population.

Why is your veterinary practice taking part in SAVSNET?

There are a large number of veterinary practices, laboratories, universities, organisations and charities who all care about pet’s health and welfare that take part in SAVSNET. The data provided by your practice is used to understand why pet’s get illnesses, and why they may be more likely to get a particular disease. With this information, we can reduce the risk of pet’s getting diseases, and if they do, offer improved advice and therapies.

How can your pet’s take part?

If you are happy for your pet to be involved, you don’t need to do anything. We will automatically collect the following types of information each time you visit your veterinary surgeon:

  1. Species, breed, age, sex, castration status and microchip number
  2. Weight/ body condition score
  3. Vaccination history
  4. Why your pet was visited by the vet or brought to the vets
  5. The notes written from the visit
  6. Items purchased, treatments given and drugs prescribed
  7. Insurance status
  8. Stables/ owner postcode
  9. Unique anonymised identification numbers assigned to just you and your pet’s

We will not record your name, or the rest of your address, or any payment details. Occasionally a vet may write names or addresses in your consultation notes - where possible, the vast of majority of these are automatically removed and for those that are not, we regularly update the software, so they are captured in future. Regardless, no identifiers are ever used for our research – this is of utmost importance and something our ethical approval relies on. SAVSNET is approved through the University of Liverpool ethics committee (RETH001081).

How to opt-out of SAVSNET

Opting out of SAVSNET will have no impact on the care individual pets receive in this veterinary practice. Owners can request for data to be removed from SAVSNET retrospectively by completing an opt-out form on the SAVSNET webpage. Veterinary practice staff can also complete this form on an owner’s behalf when requested.  All requests to remove data will be actioned, unless data has been included in an active research dataset or already published, in which case the data will be used for no further research.   

What will SAVSNET do with your information?

All the information we collect is stored securely at the University of Liverpool where it is used by SAVSNET and SAVSNET-approved researchers to better understand what makes pets like yours unwell and to aid disease prevention.

As well as scientific publications, results will be presented on our website to improve understanding of disease locally. Sometimes anonymous data may also be used to generate income (for example with companies) through the completion of reports such as work on specific diseases or treatments. Any income is only used to support the sustainability of SAVSNET, ensuring that all pets in the UK can continue to benefit from this research for as long as possible.

Protecting your privacy

SAVSNET has a responsibility under the Data Protection Act 2018 to protect your personal information. Your information will be protected in the same way. You and your pet’s will never be identifiable from any of the work outputs that use these data. SAVSNET has ethical approval from the University of Liverpool. Benchmarking and clinical data research provides a tangible benefit to UK veterinary practice. In recognition of this, the RCVS Practice Standards Scheme awards points to practices that contribute clinical data to SAVSNET. The ethical approval reference for SAVSNET is RETH001081.

Further information

Visit our website for a downloadable SAVSNET handbook which has more information on SAVSNET.

You can also contact the University of Liverpool, Research Ethics and Integrity Office if you have any further concerns. Their contact details can be found in your practice’s SAVSNET handbook that can be found on our website.

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