Event Details

  • When

    The 18th and 19th May, the 12th and 13th October 2024 in Northwest England , 29th and 30th June 2024 in Southern England.

    Groups are deliberately kept to a small size, you can reserve a place by contacting us directly via email: [email protected] or purchase your place online.

  • Where

    Venue in the Northwest of England: The Holiday Inn Runcorn, Wood Ln, Beechwood, Runcorn WA7 3HA.

    Venue in the South of England: The Holiday Inn Express, Gateway Business Park, Wendlebury Rd, Bicester OX25 2BX.

  • Course cost

    £815 (includes VAT)

Event Overview

Aspire UCS are all about empowering nurses to develop and diversify, and  there's no better way than adopting this versatile skill  as part of your clinical tool set! 

Our ground-breaking 2-Day competency-based face to face workshop has been called a 'Game-Changer'  by one of the Vets Now nurses who attended our Summer 2022 course. Within days he was utilising his newly acquired ultrasound skills with confidence to support vet colleagues and help critically ill patients. 

Our practical workshop is specifically designed for experienced RVNs wishing to acquire new skills and further support their veterinary clinicians. We have taught over 120 RVNs to perform basic A- & T-PoCUS scans within the past 18 months and our work has been commended by Vets Now.

Not only that, but this highly successful workshop has been endorsed by The British Medical Ultrasound Society (BMUS). 

The 2-Day face to face theoretical and practical workshop places a strong emphasis on hands-on the development of ultrasound system skills, the clinical ultrasound techniques necessary for basic abdominal and thoracic PoCUS, as well as considerations for ultrasound-guided needle procedures. There is a practical clinical assessment incorporated into the training to enable the attendees to exit the course with confidence in newly acquired ultrasound skills and abilities, enabling them to work safely and within their scope of practice.

Aspire UCS's informal delivery style provides attendees with ample opportunity to seek advice and support from the faculty through the duration of the course.  It's also a fun 2-days, informal and non-judgemental!

All course attendees  are invited to join our closed Aspire UCS 'RVN PoCUS Group', designed to support  learners after course completion. We  know how challenging and daunting it  can be to carry out ultrasound scans with confidence once the course is over and you're back in the clinic. We all need a 'Sonographer on your shoulder'  from time to time. We don't want the learning to end when the workshop ends!

Course Programme

The 2-Day course includes:

  • Fundamentals of ultrasound physics, image formation and B-Mode artefacts
  • Ultrasound system skills and appropriate image optimisation
  • Best practice technique for Abdominal and Thoracic PoCUS
  • Clinical implications of positive scan findings
  • Underpinning principles of in-plane ultrasound-guided needle technique
  • Professional issues to support effective clinical ultrasound practice - includes ultrasound governance, infection control, how to report a PoCUS scan and much more!
  • Ultrasound-guided needle demonstration


Clinical Practical Assessments to include:

  • Ultrasound system knowledge, skills, and image optimisation
  • Demonstration of the basic abdominal and thoracic  PoCUS sites


All our attendees are are invited to join our Aspire UCS closed RVN PoCUS Whats App community, enabling them to continue to learn, share interesting cases, any ultrasound  technique or system queries once they return to their clinical practice.

Certificate on successful completion of course assessment.

Lunch and refreshments are provided during the 2-Day course


Additional event information

Places numbers on Aspire courses are deliberately kept low (no more than 10 places per event) to ensure that hands-on practice is at the centre of your learning experience

Register your interest

Not ready to book your place, get in touch with us and let's have a chat.

Enquire now

Meet your instructors

Angie Lloyd-Jones

Aspire UCS CEO, Advanced Practitioner in Diagnostic Medical and Small Animal Veterinary Ultrasound

Angie trained as a Diagnostic Radiographer in the late 1980s. She started her ultrasound journey in West Sussex in the early 1990s, having not long since qualified as a radiographer in Plymouth, Devon. From there she moved to Wales, on to London and then back to Wales again; with each move she left behind a trail of confident, competent ultrasound practitioners across a wide range of specialities (sonographers, doctors, midwives, nurses, aortic screeners). Angie worked in numerous NHS hospitals across the UK, helping to set up ultrasound services, working her way up to management level, becoming a clinical ultrasound tutor and part-time lecturer for numerous CASE accredited ultrasound programmes. Several decades later she met Julie and after much persuasion, Angie finally took the plunge to leave the NHS and work with Julie as her ‘Head of Ultrasound’ for a UK wide imaging company, further enriching her business and clinical management skills. Four years on and Angie left the company to diversify into small animal ultrasound at specialist level. She soon realised the considerable difficulties faced by primary care vets in particular when training in ultrasound and set upon her mission to make a difference! She is especially passionate about quality, standards and competency-based learning. Covid-19 lockdown gave Julie and Angie the perfect opportunity to write some professional guidelines for small animal abdominal ultrasound. The British Medical Ultrasound Society (BMUS) published 'Small Animal Veterinary Guidelines for Professional Ultrasound Practice' in December 2022 and these have been endorsed by the ECVDI and IVUSS.

Julie Burnage

Aspire UCS COO - Advanced Practitioner in Diagnostic Medical and Small Animal Veterinary Ultrasound

Julie trained and worked as a Radiographer in North West England in the early 1980s and moved to North Wales in 1987 She started her ultrasound training in the NHS in 1988 and after qualifying went to night school to train to be a teacher so that she could share the love she had developed for ultrasound in the best possible way. In 1995 Julie set up an ultrasound scanning company providing diagnostic scans to both NHS and self pay patients in GP surgeries and clinics. Despite the negativity from many in the imaging community who believed that non medics could not and should not be providing ultrasound services Julie continued to extol the virtues of providing ‘care closer to home’. Speaking at conferences she often faced accusations of working outside her scope of practice but nothing could be further from the truth. With time she worked with some amazing Radiologists who understood the business model and were huge advocates of what she was doing and provided support and guidance. The business grew and grew and following a merger with another provider in 2013 and subsequent ‘buy out’ by venture capitalists, in 2020, Julie was ready for another challenge. By this time, Angie had been working in a small animal specialist hospital for some years and persuaded Julie to join Aspire UCS and work with her providing ultrasound services and teaching vets, vet nurses (as well as human medics) the joy of ultrasound. Covid-19 lockdown gave Julie and Angie the perfect opportunity to collaborate and write some professional guidelines for small animal abdominal ultrasound. The 'Small Animal Veterinary Guidelines for Professional Ultrasound Practice' were published by British Medical Ultrasound Society in December 2022, and have been endorsed by the ECVDI and IVUSS.