Practice Profile: Lincoln Edge Vets

Staff: full-time vets 3 • part-time vets 2 • registered veterinary nurses 4 • animal care assistants 1 •  practice administrators 2 Fees: initial consult £55 • follow-up £47

The Red Arrows are not the only troop soaring high in the village of Waddington. As well as being famed as the base of the RAF display squad, the Lincolnshire parish is home to another high-flying team.

Founded just two years ago, Lincoln Edge Vets shares many traditional values with the beloved air crew, including close formations, precision manoeuvres and being an important part of British industry.

The brainchild of senior veterinary surgeons Sarah Bartlett and Alice Simpson-McDermott, the practice is a balanced mix of the traditional and current in terms of ethos and standards.

With a desire to establish a friendly, independent veterinary practice in the heart of a local community, the two friends and colleagues first discussed the possibility of launching their own independent practice during the COVID-19 pandemic, while both working for the same corporate outfit.

The pair soon realised their ambitions for a more intimate and personal working environment were aligned with each other’s, sharing the same long-held dream.

Sarah recalled: “I always wanted to be a vet. I think business-wise, I was probably quite naive to what it was all about to start with. But I think I definitely went with the idea that you go into practice, you work there for however long, and you then buy in – or the older vets leave, and you become a partner.

“Certainly, both myself and Alice wanted it. But, along the way, it was probably at the time when the corporates were buying a lot more. And so, any bigger practices were not really looking at selling out to individuals. So, once a discussion started with the corporates, they did sell.”

She added: “The last place I worked at was a local veterinary hospital where I spent 13 years, initially as an assistant and then as a clinical director. I had a vision to eventually buy into the practice as a partner; however, it was eventually sold to IVC [Evidensia].

“Working for a corporate, you don’t have pricing autonomy, and I found I had just hit a glass ceiling.”

Finding the finance

During COVID-19, employees were split into sections and Sarah began working alongside Alice as part of a team – that is when cogs started to turn and conversations began.

Sarah had always wanted to own her own practice and had been looking at various options to achieve her dream. Alice was part-time and working three and a half days a week, but with older children, was in a position where she thought maybe she could step up.

Sarah said: “So, we were both looking at options, but the finance side of it, for a while, was one of the sticking blocks. We looked at a number of different options for trying to get the money: banks, private investments and, in the end, family and friends.”

Ultimately, with help from their families, Sarah was able to raise £50,000 and Alice’s family put up £150,000. Lincoln Edge Vets has been open for two years, and Sarah’s original investment has already been repaid.

She said: “That money pretty much paid for the build works, and we used Braemar Finance for the equipment we needed and wanted new, then went second-hand with some of the other stuff like the kennelling.

“Alice drew the design for the practice on the back of a piece of paper and we sort of split the building into thirds. It’s a long, narrow building with around 2,500sq ft of floor space; reception, consults and office space is one-third of that.

“We also have a very large prep area, and the rest is kennelling and clinical space and so far it is working really well.

“We already knew we wanted to open in this area – the Lincoln Edge escarpment – as it is pretty affluent with lots of farmers and we also get a lot of clients from the nearby airbase. Plus, Alice and I are both well-known in the area, which helped.”

Building the dream

Having found the building, work was started in May 2022, and Lincoln Edge Vets was open by November.

Sarah said: “I would say the biggest headache was probably deadlines and increasing costs.”

Rising costs of building work post-COVID was an issue for the pair and they believe they paid a price for their lack of experience when it came to getting a “proper estimate in black and white from the builders”.

Sarah recalled: “Costs kept going up and, at one point, it was a little scary, as we had started paying our staff and yet we were not able to open the practice due to delays.

“That is a worry, and that is when it really hit home what we had taken on, as we were paying wages before we had even got any money coming in. But we got there, and we haven’t looked back since we opened for business.

“We went with IDEXX for the lab because they have good agreements for start ups where you have a zero commitment for the first year and it all obviously integrates really well with our PMS, which is EasyVet.

“We used Moore Scarrott as our accountant, and we are part of the VetShare buying group, which really helps keep our pricing competitive.

“We use [the University of] Cambridge’s vet school for a lot of medicine and surgery referrals, as they are great to communicate with, and we use Frank.Pet Surgeons or Lincolnshire Veterinary Specialists for orthopaedics.” Lincoln Edge Vets started with just five team members, and now it boasts a team of 12, including five vets.

High-performing team

The duo are pleased with their accomplishments so far, happy they have achieved the right balance on all sides of the business, including fees. The practice charges £55 for a consultant, £47 for a follow-up, and for that their clients get a 20-minute appointment.

Sarah said: “Our team is amazing and comes across well, we work to a high standard, we charge fairly and we communicate well. Another thing our clients tell us is that they love the atmosphere here; they like bringing their pets to us and they like that we give them the time they need.

“You obviously need a motivated team and a good work ethic, too, and we have that culture where everyone pulls together because they feel supported and if they have an issue, they can get it sorted quickly.

“In a corporate practice, that can be a challenge, as when issues are raised they have to go through multiple channels, but Alice and I are here every day, so if there are issues, our team can come straight to us to get them sorted.”

She added: “We are both mothers, too. Alice has a 13 year old and I have a couple of teenagers, so the timing was right for us with them moving on to secondary school and just having a little bit more of an independent outlook, as they are older.

“It just works, and we can split our days, we both agreed to work the mornings; however, if the day’s remained quiet, one of us would have an earlier finish to allow a great work-life balance. We share Saturdays between all the vets and we use Vets Now and that gives us a great balance, and it works for our team, too.

“Touch wood, it’s run amazingly smoothly.”

Sarah and Alice both have more than 20 years in practice and – for now at least – their business model remains based on employing experienced vets who can generate higher revenue.

Sarah said: “At some point, we might look to bring in a new grad, but now is not the time because we are so busy; they would not get the support they needed to develop.

“We can work to more capacity here for a period of time, and we can probably work more efficiently. There’s a bit more space for another consult room; however, we may need to consider a separate surgical or admin unit on this site, which would allow us to increase capacity in the future.

“At the moment, we’re in a sweet spot, so we’re cautious about what happens next. We will certainly be adding laparoscopy next year – maybe even later this year – but I don’t think, growth-wise, we want to open a complete branch practice or anything like that.”

Future plans

The practice is now generating approximately £120,000 revenue a month and has 2,600 active clients and 3,800 patients on its books, with more registering every day.

Sarah said: “I feel like if someone else succeeds, it doesn’t mean we’re going to fail. I really feel that with the right planning and finance, a lot of vets can do this and make a success of it if they are committed to it.”

Looking back over the whole experience of launching a new practice, there are some nuggets of wisdom Sarah was happy to share with anyone thinking of heading down a similar path.

She said: “One thing I would recommend is to reach out to the right people, as there is a lot of help out there from the likes of Vet Dynamics, Onswitch and others.

“I would add a word of warning around how people go about raising the money, because we have since discovered that one or two of the arrangements proposed by some business investors would have stung us really badly.

“Just remember, the money will come if you show that you’re willing to do the work and just do good medicine and surgery; the work will come.”

As far as future plans look, Sarah and Alice would like to stick to their original aspiration for “buy-in” opportunities.

Sarah explained: “We fought to be independent, and it just doesn’t sit comfortably that you then sell to a corp when it’s your turn to go.

“We have thought about the employee ownership trust model, but I think we’d like to develop the old partnership model and give some of the assistant vets the chance to buy in. I mean, you can never say never, and we understand why so many sold out to the corporates, as the money was so huge, but we really want to build a traditional partnership model that worked so well in the past and really gives vets something to aim for; ownership is what they want.

“I know a lot of people in our position say this, but we didn’t do this for the money; we did it because we want to work the way we want to work, manage the cases how we want to manage them, build a team and build a really healthy culture.”