Practice Profile: Doncaster Pet Clinic

When the coronavirus struck in March 2020 and the country went into lockdown, a lot of people found themselves taking a long hard look at their lives – and their careers.

Among them was Kirsty Perratt, an experienced vet nurse who had become disillusioned with her career, in part due to the commercial pressures she’d found herself working under in some of her previous roles.

So, when global travel restrictions meant a long-planned trip to Florida was cancelled, Kirsty and her husband, Chris, decided to take the money they’d saved and do something else.

Instead of spending two weeks in the sun, the couple remortgaged the family home, secured a bank loan for £50,000 and started hunting for a suitable site to open their own practice.

But, as Kirsty explained, COVID-19 was arguably just the tipping point for change after years of feeling steadily ground down by the job.

She said: “I qualified as a vet nurse in 2008 and had pretty much worked in every practice in the Doncaster area, as well as working in clinical management for one of the large corporates, too, so I had seen it all and become a bit tired of it.

“I just realised in lockdown that I just wasn’t happy and the kind of work I was doing wasn’t what I trained to do or how I thought being a veterinary nurse should work.

“I didn’t want to have targets of how many blood tests to sell or how much product to shift if I wanted to be paid more. I know it’s a business and they have to make money, but I just found it hard to work like that.

“It was also pretty clear that there were a lot of clients that were not happy with their experience of coming to the vet because they were having to spend a lot of money on things all the time, and it was always our fault somehow and that just starts to wear you down.”

Getting started

Kirsty had reached the point where she had seriously considered turning her back on the sector completely to retrain in radiography or phlebotomy so she could move into the field of human health care.

But with her two children in full-time education by this stage and with the firm conviction that doing it her own way would reignite her love for veterinary medicine, Kirsty and Chris decided to go for it.

The couple were encouraged all the way by an old colleague and vet, Niamh Lyons, who had worked with Kirsty for many years and proved to be instrumental in getting the practice up and running.

Kirsty said: “Niamh was someone I knew really well and when she was coming back from mat leave, she got in touch and I told her about my plans and she was really enthusiastic and, in the end, helped us with loads of stuff to get up and running with getting the licences we needed and with our protocols and things like that.

“She then stayed on with us as a vet for a year before heading home to Ireland.

“We had looked at a lot of potential sites and originally we wanted somewhere bigger than this, but this place was just round the corner from ours – so, when we became aware that this might be available, we took a look and it seemed ideal for what we wanted.”

Making it happen

A former Vets for Pets practice that had stood empty for five years, the early 20th century detached property in the village of Edenthorpe sits in a prominent position on the busy A18 road into Doncaster.

As it turned out, Vets for Pets still held the 15-year lease on the property, but, after much back and forth with the landlord, the lease was secured and the pair received the keys to the building at the start of July 2022.

But as Chris, a building surveyor by trade, explained, while there were some inherent advantages with a building that had previously been used for the same purpose, years of standing empty had taken their toll on the structure.

He said: “We kind of knew what we were getting into in terms of the layout as Kirsty had worked here when it was Vets for Pets years ago, but it was pretty derelict when we got in here.

“We also didn’t have a lot of money to throw at this – £65,000 in total for the whole project – and we were on a tight deadline as we planned to open by the end of July.

“So, I pretty much did all the work myself in less than three weeks – and it was a lot of work.

“The place had been boarded up for years, so there was a lot to be done. It needed new flooring put in downstairs, a new reception area and every room was completely decorated. The electrics also needed to be thoroughly checked and we also had to install a new boiler and fix the roof but we just about got it all done in time.”

Deadline dash

Despite the rush, the results of Chris’ efforts are impressive. It is clear on entering the practice that a significant amount of his time was spent renovating the reception area, which now has a bright and open feel with separate seating areas for cat-owning clients.

Pharmacy sits behind the reception area, as do the practice’s two consult rooms, which are both double-doored to improve practice throughput. A good-sized prep area is located to the rear of the ground floor, close to theatre, the dog ward and x-ray while a small adjacent room is currently being converted to a third consult room to keep pace with growing demand.

Upstairs is a large staff room, kitchen and office, along with the laboratory area and cat ward.

While Chris got on with knocking the building in shape, Kirsty was able to make use of her extensive contacts in the veterinary industry to ensure everything else was in place in time for opening on 26 July 2022.

Equipment was mostly bought new – anaesthetic trolleys, oxygen concentrators and consult room equipment were all purchased from JAK, while digital x-ray and ultrasound were provided and installed by Celtic SMR.

Kirsty said: “I knew a lot of reps so that helped us and I also got our wholesaler (NVS) sorted early, but I have to say the guys at IDEXX were great when it came to sorting out what machines we needed and also the PMS.

“We went for ezyVet in the end, as it was a system I had worked with before and it meant we had everything up and running seamlessly in days.

“The only thing I didn’t get sorted out in advance of our opening day was a buying group and I must admit that was an error as it meant I was definitely paying too much for things in those first few months, which kept things pretty tight. But we are going with Vetsure now and I am hoping that is going to bring down our costs quite a bit.”

Thriving business

It may have been a bit of a scramble to get Doncaster Pet Clinic open on time, but one of the things Kirsty and Chris didn’t have to worry about was finding clients.

The local area is dominated by corporate practices and having worked locally for many years, Kirsty was confident that, with so many pet owners in the area, a new independent would prove popular.

And that has certainly been the case, with the practice now boasting more than 600 active clients and a turnover of £380,000 in the past financial year. That represents a clear profit of more than £80,000 for Kirsty and Chris to plough back into the business – a far cry from the early weeks and months where the couple admit to having a few “scary” moments when it came to cash flow.

Kirsty said: “We had people coming in from the start as people knew me and they obviously knew the building as a veterinary practice before it was shut down.

“We did a bit of leafleting and some stuff on Facebook, but most of it was word of mouth once people knew what was happening. We got a few pre-registrations, too, which helped settle any nerves, but there were a few moments in those first months where we were a little worried about making ends meet and pressing about the bank balance daily. But we got through it and since then, the practice has gone from strength to strength.”

A family affair

It certainly helped that Kirsty had husband Chris for support and keeping things in the family has been central to the success of the practice.

As well as Kirsty and Chris, the practice also employs Kirsty’s sister Emma as practice manager and sister-in-law Jenna, who runs reception. In total, the business now employs a team of 12, including three vets and three RVNs, and also operates a mobile vet van.

Things have come a long way and it is obvious Kirsty – an animal lover to the core with a growing menagerie of rescue animals at the family home – is finally getting the kind of professional fulfilment she’d always looked for from her career in veterinary medicine.

She said: “This is what I qualified for and I am so pleased we went for it. I have never worked longer hours and there has been a lot of stress, but I wouldn’t change it for the world and now things have settled down, it is just great coming into work.

“We’ve got all the right people who couldn’t do enough and they love this place, they love working here and they just want what’s best for our clients.

“And the clients seem to appreciate it and that we are very honest with them about their options and the cost of those options.”

Difficult conversations

One of the areas Kirsty has struggled with, however, has been the growing number of conversations she and her team have had with clients around the price of medications.

Lately, the practice has seen a surge in the number of clients asking for prescriptions that can be filled elsewhere – something that has inevitably impacted practice finances.

She said: “I think that has been our biggest problem and something we have really seen rise since the Competition and Markets Authority stuff started hitting headlines.

“When we started there we filled the majority of prescriptions here, but that has changed round massively.

“We are very honest with clients about why we charge what we charge. Unfortunately, as a lone independent, we do struggle to get our meds at a lower price, but we are putting a lot of work into making that happen.”

Future plans

And for the future – do Kirsty and Chris see themselves expanding and building their own mini-independent empire in the Doncaster area?

The answer is an emphatic no. Kirsty said: “We didn’t come into this to make a pile of cash, but obviously no business can stay still.

“It would be nice to buy this building at some point and obviously expand what we have here to employ more vets and nurses, but we are not about taking over the world – this is about creating a great place to work for our team and a great practice pet owners can trust.”

• VBJ 256, Pages 15-19