14 Feb 2020
Spinney Vets near Northampton has just undergone a significant refurbishment that has seen the practice double in size. Now the dust has settled, VBJ paid a visit to see if the investment has paid off...
James Westgate
Job Title
Staff: full-time vets 4 • registered veterinary nurses 3 • trainee nurses 3 • practice administrator 1
Fees: initial consult £37.50 • follow-up £37.50
Spinney Vets has a proud history in Northampton that goes back more than half a century.
After beginning life as a mixed operation in the Derngate area of town, the practice relocated to Kettering Road – and this site still serves as the main hospital hub for the practice.
In 2003, with new housing developments earmarked, the practice partners decided to open a second site in nearby Wootton.
The job of launching the venture went to veterinary surgeon Lisa Bond, who is still with the practice as clinical director following its acquisition by Linnaeus in 2017.
She said: “I joined in 1998, having initially practised in Yorkshire at a mainly large animal practice for four years. I decided I wanted to do more small animal work and so took a job down here with Spinney Vets; at that time the practice had one main hospital site.
“The partners had a vision to open a branch in this direction and I asked to be a part of that.
“When we first opened the branch in 2003 it was just me and a receptionist.”
Under Lisa’s guidance the practice went from strength to strength as new housing sprung up around it. The goalposts moved somewhat in 2017, however, when the partners decided to retire and Spinney Vets was bought by the Linnaeus Group.
Lisa explained: “When change occurs within a business, it inevitably leads to some uncertainty among the staff, but the Linnaeus team was great at giving us the reassurance we needed and that made a big difference to the business.
“They were very quick to let us know there would not be massive changes to the way we worked and that they would trust us to run the practice as we saw fit.
“We run the practice as its own entity and we have great support from Linnaeus as and when we need it. The Linnaeus central support team has assisted us during our recent recruitment process with our new vets, nurses and reception staff, and with the procurement of our new equipment.”
And having promised Lisa and her co-clinical director Iain Fletcher that they would be supported in their good work and plans to develop the practice, the team at Linnaeus proved to be as good as its word.
With new housing continuing to spring up in and around Northampton, the site run by Lisa at Wootton had become the victim of its own success. The practice had begun to burst at the seams and Lisa knew the site would have to be moved, redeveloped or expanded.
She said: “We had reached the point where we didn’t have any consulting space left and yet we were well aware there were a lot of potential customers out there.
“The demographic is great for a veterinary practice as there are lots of families in and around the town who prioritise their pets’ health – often making the decision to insure them – so we knew we needed to expand to meet their expectations.
“We approached the operations manager at Linnaeus with a proposal, and we were asked what that would look like and what we would be able to offer – for example, how many more consults, how many more procedures and what additional facilities could we offer.
“We went through the figures, and they agreed with our proposal and gave us the green light to make it happen.”
After searching the area for a suitable site, it turned out the ideal unit became available next door to the existing surgery. But when Linnaeus contacted the estate agent handling the lease, it was informed that a rival veterinary practice had also made enquiries.
Lisa admitted this information helped her push her case: “When we were told that another veterinary practice was interested in the site, that certainly focused our minds and sped up the process.
“We acquired the lease on the unit in January 2019, building work started shortly after and it was all finished in March. We stayed open throughout; they started work on the new unit first with a plan to break through the adjoining walls between this site and next door midway through the project.
“It was then that we needed to stop performing sterile surgical procedures because of the dust levels, but we continued consulting. It was a bit of an ordeal at times as our staff would have to come in earlier to clear the dust before our day started.
“The builders worked through the night so we could remain open during the day. We may have been a little naive about the difficulties our staff would face during this final phase and, with hindsight, it may have been better to close.”
One issue occurred when the builders finally broke through to join the two units together, however – it turned out the next door unit’s flooring was six inches higher. But plans were reworked with builders, and the practice now has a ramp in the clinical areas and a step in the waiting room up to the cat waiting area. Despite these late adjustments, the team worked well through the disruption and is now reaping the rewards of a wonderful new working environment.
As well as a complete refit of the entire practice, the £215,000 spent on the project saw the practice double its number of consulting rooms – from two to four – and double the size of the waiting room area, which, in turn, allowed for separate areas for cat and dog owners.
In-house laboratory equipment was bought – previously all laboratory samples were carried out at either the main hospital site or sent to an external laboratory – and the number of dog kennels was doubled. A large dedicated theatre also now exists with new multi-parameter monitoring and patient warming devices, an imaging room with digital radiography and ultrasound facilities, as well as a separate area to perform dental procedures.
Lisa said: “I am very proud of the practice and our team, and hope the investment will continue to pay off. In 2020 our aim is to maintain our current growth in client numbers and continue to offer an excellent service to their pets. We have been blown away, not just with the increase in client numbers, but with our new working environment, which is just great – the decor is amazing, the light is wonderful and we just have so much more space.
“It is also wonderful having our own radiography machine – it might not sound much, but before the refurbishment our clients had to travel with their pets to the hospital.
“The hospital site is only a 15-minute car journey, but from a client’s point of view it’s great and convenient that we can perform radiography on site. We can also run blood tests in-house and obtain results in 15 minutes for cases that require urgent treatment.”
Lisa explained how the working lives of the nurses have been transformed, too: “Previously the nurses had to ‘borrow’ a consulting room when we had a gap in consulting times, but now they have their own dedicated consulting room.
“The nurses are able to run regular geriatric and weight clinics, and perform postoperative checks, dressing changes and nail clips. The nurses love it as they have their own designated area.
“Having the nurses more involved with the clients is really useful as often clients will tell the nurses details that they will be worried about telling the vets – for example, they might be feeding inappropriate foods to their pets or, in the case of elderly pets, the client may speak to the nurse more openly about their concerns as often they worry if they raise these with the vet, then the vet might just recommend putting that animal to sleep.
“In these cases, it is the nurses who will often open the eyes of the client to possible treatments and solutions to their issues. It was always part of our plan to ensure the nurses had their own consulting room.”
It’s clear the expansion has provided the clinical team with a clinical space they enjoy working in, but how has the expansion gone down with the clients?
Lisa added: “Since April we have really seen the business grow. Previously we were performing 25 to 35 consults a day and now we are seeing an additional 40 to 50 clients on top of that – so we have certainly already justified the expansion.
“We have employed two extra vets and we have received some great feedback from Linnaeus on the project, too, which is also very rewarding.”
The practice was also recently inspected by the RCVS Practice Standards Scheme and achieved all the relevant criteria to move from Core to GP status.
Lisa and Iain have worked hard to build a practical framework around the Linnaeus ethos of transparency, and to try to nurture a sense of achievement for individuals and among colleagues. Specifically, working on a wage structure that allows for the reward of effort, experience and achievement within the workplace for both small contributions, such as the mentoring of new employees, to rewards for completion of certificate qualifications. A direct and deliberate attempt to move away from the cloak and dagger payroll styles of the past.
Lisa added: “We want our staff to be able to celebrate their achievements with a salary increase, and for the team to understand how achievements can be rewarded. The salary structure was our priority task when we took on our new roles as clinical directors, as we knew retention of our great team was the key to a successful practice.”
Other important steps taken were to improve the vets’ rotas. Vets now work four days a week, while the weekend rota has improved from one in five weekends to one in eight weekends. This all helps to keep staff fresh and motivated in their work, with increasing focus on training opportunities for all staff.
Lisa said: “Our focus has been on retention of vets and ‘growing’ our own vets. We have had a number of vets in recent years that came to us as veterinary students on EMS and, once qualified, became employed by us.
“There is a renewed focus on training – not just our vets doing certificates, but our nurses and our administration staff, too. It is important that everyone is offered career development opportunities and these are actively encouraged.”
The practice is now looking at ways to increase the number of veterinary students carrying out their EMS at Spinney Vets in a bid to develop potential new starters, to enable the practice to continue expanding.
Lisa said: “We are communicating with the vet schools to ensure they know we will take students for EMS.
“We have two new graduates and, through Linnaeus, they are in their first year of a well-defined two-year graduate development programme, and a third vet coming towards the end of her second year. You can really see the difference this programme gives the new vets in terms of their skills and just their general confidence, which is so important in their early careers.
“I hear all the time about young vets leaving the profession or wanting to leave and it is so sad. These intelligent young people have spent thousands of pounds on their degrees and yet they want to walk away from it.
“Practices could do more to support these newly qualified vets and we are trying to do our bit by creating a place where they feel supported, and they are happy and fulfilled in their work.”
Lisa added: “For the future we want to get our dental radiography unit up and running. It has now arrived at the practice – we are just waiting for it to be installed and that will enable us to be able to offer dental radiography as standard with our dental procedures.
“We are also looking to recruit more support staff for reception and nursing duties. Due to our increasing client numbers, we are also advertising for additional vets.
“We have previously discussed with Linnaeus that, should a suitable site become available, it would be open to further discussion about another branch. But for the immediate future our focus is on growing what we have here, and ensuring we provide an excellent service, quality veterinary care and a great working environment for our staff.”
