05/08/2022
‘Don’t take it out on our staff!’: How did Britain become so angry?
💬 Shopworkers, GP surgeries and call centres have all reported an alarming rise in abusive behaviour directed toward them. How can we calm this national rage?
➡️ Read in The Guardian :
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/04/britain-angry-abusive-behaviour-staff
Recently, the British Veterinary Association - BVA reported that 1 in 2 vets working in clinical practice experienced online abuse in the last year alone.
‘Vet Bashing’ is a term that usually describes online berating or abuse of veterinary staff or practices.
Any social media post that involves the cost of veterinary treatment and/or the death of an animal can be hugely emotive. This is the perfect combination to create a clickbait article that is likely to go viral. The majority of the time the posts are driven by emotion, anger or financial disputes that lead to public uproar. They rarely tell the full story, but the damage caused to individuals can be catastrophic.
The Guardian article states:
💬Perhaps, too, the dehumanising effects of communing online, which makes dishing out bile to strangers as easy as a “frictionless” online payment to a lot of people.
➡️ Over 90% of veterinary professionals polled in Veterinary Voices UK reported they live in fear of online complaints and social media abuse.
Remember that shaming or abusing a veterinary practice on social media will not help to resolve your complaint, and the resulting barrage of online abuse will cause a huge amount of stress and upset to all the staff who work at that veterinary practice.
➡️ Abusive behaviour does not need to be tolerated by any profession.
This could result in a practice withdrawing their services and may result in you having to find another practice.
Given the immense pressure our UK veterinary teams are under this could delay treatment. There are much more appropriate ways to discuss if you feel dissatisfied by a service, none of which includes verbal or physical abuse or threatening behaviour.
Read our article below to understand:
➡️Veterinary professionals are among the most diligent and dedicated professionals
➡️Why complaints occur
➡️What warrents a complaint
➡️How to handle a genuine complaint, in a calm and constructive manner
✅ Veterinary Voices UK: Stop Social Shaming
https://www.vetvoices.co.uk/post/stop-social-shaming
