Specialist Headhunters
01423 861727
The Role
THE ROLE
What will further strengthen their leadership team is the addition of a Senior Vet. The practice owner recognises people have their key strengths and interests so with that in mind the responsibilities of the role can be shaped around the person to an extent. They may include:
• inspiring, motivating and developing the vet team
• supporting younger vet colleagues (and nurses) with clinical development
• maintaining high clinical standards
• identifying areas of development and improvement
• identifying opportunities for further commercial growth
Being a Senior Vet provides the opportunity to step into a leadership role but not have complete responsibility of a practice and a team. It means you can develop your leadership experience and skills at a pace to suit you, rather than being thrown in the deep end as a Clinical Director where the expectations are exceptionally high. Being a Senior Vet here means you have the practice owner to lean on and to bounce ideas off, whilst still enjoying autonomy in your role. Working with the owner of the business every day means questions can be answered and decisions can be made quickly. They are also on the ground with you observing your hard work and contribution, which then tends to be more easily recognised and rewarded.
What works well here in terms of maintaining a happy practice and close knit team is a fair and inclusive approach to leadership. It’s about ensuring everyone has a voice and an input into how things are done, rather than being dictated to. It’s about creating a safe space for open communication, listening to people’s suggestions, and discussing, examining them, and accepting them collectively as a team. The team work at their best when they are able to come forward with new ideas and ground-breaking clinical suggestions, because they know they will be discussed and adopted to benefit the care and outcomes of the patient which is what the team are really driven by. A great example of this is their recent discussions about changing their anaesthetic protocols. It’s something the team are discussing together and bringing ideas forward for, all with the outcome of the pet in mind.
WORK LIFE BALANCE
4 days a week
Your day off each week is fixed which makes life outside of work more predictable and consistent.
1 in 5 weekends.
No OOH.
8.30am - 7pm with 90 mis for lunch everyday.
Key Points
A true leadership role with lots of autonomy Suitable for someone with an interest in surgery who wants to be a surgical lead.
Make decisions about the practice and the team
Strong management structure in place
The Lead Vet is supported by the Practice owner, Senior Vet, and Practice Manager
90 minutes for lunch everyday and overtime always given back in lieu Go home for lunch, go to the gym, run errands, or take a nap!
Log any overtime you do and take it back when you need it - whether it's for an extended lunch break, finishing early, or general time off.
The Practice
The practice was established in 2008 and has grown to a 5 vet practice.
The practice owner has over 25 years’ experience working in the UK and abroad and has a certificate in small animal surgery.
HIGH STANDARDS OF CARE
The team here strive to go above and beyond for clients and their pets in many different ways. They want people and their pets to feel welcome, and often it’s the smallest gesture that counts such as carrying a heavy bag of pet food out to someone’s car for them. They all sign and write personal messages in condolence cards when a patient is put to sleep, and the clients really love that touch. Many of them say they’ve not experienced that level of kindness before. If there are clients in the waiting room who have had to wait a little bit, or are particularly stressed, the receptionists always make them feel well looked after and will offer a cup of tea. It’s all part of the client’s positive journey with the practice. They aim to be as feline friendly as possible, offering blankets sprayed with pet remedy in the reception area to cover cat carriers and following protocol to treat cats in a stress-free manner.
Clinically, they always make sure any pet under anaesthetic has cannula intubation, even for a routine operation. They believe in gold standard care. They pride themselves on good dentals too, they are never rushed. They like to perform neat and tidy surgery. After a procedure, even if it was straightforward, the vets will ring the client a week later to see if they have any additional questions and to resolve even the smallest of doubts. They’ll always make sure all client phone calls are returned, and the responsibility is assigned to the vet on 2nd ops to make sure it happens. This approach isn’t just about the client feeling reassured and valued, it’s also about you as a vet feeling confident you have provided the best possible level of care and ultimately provides great job satisfaction.
FACILITIES & CASELOAD
There are 4 consultation rooms, an operating theatre, separate cat, dog, and rabbit wards, and a dental station. It is well equipped with in house biochemistry, haematology, blood pressure monitor, digital x-ray, dental x-ray, cardiac ultrasound, endoscopy, and laparoscopy. At the back of the building, they have a large office space and a separate space for staff to get a drink or eat lunch.
Being established for 14 years, the client base offers a mature and varied caseload. They see a fairly equal split of cats and dogs and a reasonable amount of small furries (rabbits, guinea pigs, rats and hamsters).
Day to day, they usually have around 5-6 procedures booked and an additional 1-2 last minute procedures. They see a reasonable number of emergencies, sometimes 2-3 a week, or sometimes 3 in one day, and they can include cases like toxicity, fitting dogs, foreign bodies, or blocked cats. They keep 8 emergency slots open each day to make sure they can accommodate last minute emergency cases.
The practice also performs laparoscopic bitch spays. The practice owner currently does one day a week of laparoscopic surgeries. Moving forward, there’s more they would like to do with laparoscopy.
THE TEAM
In addition to the practice owner, there are 4 vets, a Practice Manager and 6 nurses.
The vets have worked here 7, 6, and 2 years. The PM has been here 6 years, and the nurses have a pretty solid and stable team too.
There’s a high level of respect between the vet and nurse team. It isn’t the type of practice where the vets will ever take over the role of a nurse for example. They want them to do what they are trained for, and they are brilliant at what they do. They do bloods, catheters, cannulas, prep all patients ready for surgery, scale and polishes, and skin scrapes.
It’s an adult environment here, nobody is monitored or watched. The vets organise their time and their diaries properly and if something isn’t going quite right in that department the vets are very friendly with each other. If there’s a problem, they will all sit down to discuss what they can do to make it better.
The whole team think very highly of one another and it’s clear that here it is the team that keep the team together. As a team they are very honest and transparent with each other.
The team vibe is described as “light” in the sense that they are never too serious and are able to have fun together while working to very high standards. It’s a busy practice, but everybody thrives on the challenge and variety of each day, and they still allow themselves time to have fun whilst getting the job done.