About the Practice

This 3-4 vet small animal practice in the Ipswich area is looking for their next special team member.

​

The priority of the owners of this practice is to ensure people enjoy coming to work and are taken care of. They achieve this by paying special attention to people’s individual needs, aspirations and requests and supporting them to achieve them.

​

The ways in which they achieve this include:

​

Flexibility

​

The owners of this practice feel it is important to be flexible for people that work part time within the practice, and they would happily consider multiple part time vets. This does not mean that clients get any less in the way of continuity as they will pay attention to that when discussing flexibility in a rota for someone.

The flexibility they can offer can extend as far as school hours to a working parent (like 9am – 3pm), and some flexibility in the frequency of weekends to make it work for someone.  

​

A full time vet can be shown the same flexibility. They’ve always had the mentality of being fair, but that doesn’t mean giving everyone the exact same amount of early and late shifts, it’s about meeting everyone’s individual needs, shaping the role around the individual rather than trying to get someone to fit solely into their needs. This is a fairly uncommon approach in the veterinary world, although it is shifting as the years go by. From day one, you could make your career work for you releasing a lot of undue pressure and stress from trying to be everything, to everyone, all of the time at work and at home.

​

If you were working full time, then you could do 4 days a week 8.30am – 7pm and 1 in 3 Saturday mornings. There’s the option of working just less than full time too and taking on additional shifts for holiday cover for example, giving you that flexibility to work more if you want to, or at times when you want a boost to your finances. It’s about making your job work for you in the way that’s right for you.

​

Communication

​

This is a practice where they have an open forum for everyone as a baseline.

They have practice meetings to get everyone’s opinion on how they want to move things forward. On an individual level, they schedule regular 1 to 1s as well as an annual appraisal and pay review. Between these structured get togethers, if anyone needs to talk, they will make it happen. It’s not one of those practices where you request a meeting, and still haven’t had it 3 weeks later. They understand the importance of people being able to express what’s coming up for them, and to solve problems sooner rather than later.

​

Support

​

If you are a someone who wants to take their clinical skills to the next level, with 2 experienced vets in the team (1 of which is doing a surgery certificate and has a special interest in imaging and cardiac scanning), means you will two excellent points of contact for clinical queries, as well as hands on support. They will open up the diary for their new vet in a way that serves how slowly or quickly they want to grow.

If you are relatively new to certain surgeries for example, they can work the diary so that you have someone in theatre with you. If you need more time with your consults, or time within your consulting blocks to discuss cases, then this can be worked in too.

​

If you are someone who already has a solid clinical grounding with a specific area of interest, then they will look to nurture this interest, even helping you to achieve a role more biased towards this area of interest, just like they have done for their existing vet who is working towards a surgery certificate. They have bought in extra kit to ensure they continue developing, and they are currently trialling a new scanner with cardiac table adjustments.

​

They recognise that clients get the best out of playing to each vets’ strengths, so aside from the fulfilment of being able to do more of what you love, the clients and their pets also benefit, which then continues to have a positive knock on effect. If your clients are happy, and their pets are happy, they are more bonded to the practice, they trust you more, they listen to your clinical advice and suggested treatment protocols and are more compliant in the way they provide post-vet-visit care at home, after an op or a medical procedure.

​

Progression

​

Building on the open forum they have as a team to collaboratively shape the future of this practice, there are certain responsibilities within the practice that a vet may wish to get involved in because it is a passion of theirs or plays to their strengths. For example, the training and mentoring of younger vet colleagues, and nurses, or being involved in quality assurance and looking at audit trails, or perhaps taking an area of interest (such as senior pets) and taking the lead on how to approach those types of cases when they come in.

​

They want people to enjoy coming to work, and part of that is ensuring you feel like an integral part of the practice, having a voice and the ability to make positive change where you identify areas of improvement. There’s nothing more frustrating than seeing that something could be done better, and not feeling confident to approach your managers about it. At the end of the day, you suffer through not speaking out and it’s likely other people will be thinking the same. Plus, whatever you notice could be improved is likely to be having a direct input on the clients’ and pets’ experience of the practice, and even clinical outcomes!

​

​

The Practice Values & Ethos

​

They have an excellent reputation within the local community for being a fear free, low stress practice for pets. It is a high priority for them that any pet visiting them feels comfortable and they are always looking at ways to make the pet’s (and client’s) visit easier.

​

Knowing that you as the vet have the time to give the pet the space it needs, and it’s an ethos shared by the whole team, with measures put in place to ensure it happens, it reduces an awful lot of stress and results in a more rewarding relationship with your clients and their pets.

​

Your success in this role isn’t about average transaction values, or any finances or cost. As a practice it is something they are aware of, but they don’t use it as a measurement of performance. They don’t set targets; they simply encourage people to use what they have (15 minute consults and diagnostic tools) and work up the animal in front of them for what they think it needs. They are not prescriptive on how you treat xyz case. The only thing they do pay attention to is the use of antibiotics within the practice, but by and large if you’re giving an appropriate treatment that is current for evidence, then you’re free to make your own decisions. They don’t encourage any team members to be hung up on finance and cost, a client can either afford something or they can’t, and the vets will never judge the client either way.

​

As a practice, they are flexible in terms of new ideas for best practice. The owner has been a vet for over 20 years, but the team has told us that they’ve always admired her for keeping herself up to date and being open to new ways of doing things.

​

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Team

​

The vet team currently includes 2 other vets with a combined experience of 34 years.

​

One of the vets is a strong all round general practitioner who still after almost 25 years demonstrates a real passion for their vocation. They love doing boosters and seeing new puppies, as well as end of life care. She feels there is nothing more rewarding than having provided veterinary care to a pet for the whole of its life, to then be part of their end of life transition. She loves speaking to clients and finding out their stories and is always looking for ways to make the consultation even better. She has focused a lot of her CPD around non-clinical areas such as dealing with clients and consulting better, because she knows how helpful and useful it is. She believes that the art of being a vet is often forgotten about by a number of vets, and that it is something you can keep working on throughout your whole career and is as important sometimes as your clinical skills.

​

The other vet at this practice is 8 years qualified and has a keen interest in surgery and diagnostic imaging.  Having worked in much larger practices before, she enjoys the smaller close knit feel to the team, as well as the surgical opportunity. Although a larger practice has a much higher volume of surgical cases, there are also more vets and sometimes with similar interests which can create competition for cases. Here, she gets to do more of the surgery she loves. 

​

The vets are supported by 5 RVNs (including a Practice Manager, 2 Head Nurses and 2 RVNs), 2 VCAs, a student nurse and 6 receptionists. 

​

The nursing team are solid and committed to the practice. Many have worked here a long time (9 years, 9 years, 7 years, 3.5 years, 1 year). Based on testimonials from the nursing team, we know this is because of the team, how they work together. Nobody is too opinionated, everybody is flexible, open minded, and respectful of people’s different personality types, which simply makes this a really nice place to work. They feel valued and well taken care of and appreciate the level of communication between the owners and the rest of the team. Their skills are fully utilised and they are supported and encouraged to develop. 

​

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------