Practice Profile: Bury St Edmunds Veterinary Centre

By their own admission, Carly Day and Jenny Reason are “not particularly ‘vetty’ vets”, and neither had any kind of track record in management or leadership prior to opening their own practice in May 2019.

But both are “as stubborn as hell” and even though they were repeatedly told their plan to open a 4,000 sq ft practice was too ambitious as Jenny had just become a mother for the first time, the pair pushed on regardless.

Despite having no personal funds, the pair were able to persuade friends to buy into their venture as partners before securing the rest of the £250,000 needed via a loan from NatWest.

With four established practices already operating in Bury, the venture was not without risk, but three years on, the practice is turning over more than £1.75 million per annum and now employs a team of 23, including five vets, seven RVNs and a five-strong front of house team.

But that is only half the story. Jenny and Carly never set out to take over the world, and didn’t open their own practice to become rich and remote.

They wanted to be at the heart of creating a happy, healthy and inspiring working environment, and in that particular venture they have been a spectacular success.

Carly said: “When we opened this place, we didn’t really know anything about running our own business, but we did know that it wasn’t going to be about making as much money as we could as quickly as we could.

“First and foremost, we wanted to build the kind of practice we had always wanted to work in, somewhere supportive, somewhere people could develop and somewhere everyone could thrive, and we like to think we have done that.

“I love being a vet, it gets me out of bed in the morning, and it makes me very happy, I’m a very happy vet – we both are – and I don’t really want to ever lose that and we don’t want our team to lose that love of their jobs either.

“So far, we have only employed people we know and that means we are more like a work family that supports each other and cares for each other, and that is really important to us.

“When it isn’t a family anymore and we’re not working with friends, that might be when we hit our limit, but we’re really lucky that we’ve had enough people to pick from that we’ve picked people that fit our family, and together, we have made this work.”

Tight-knit team

Carly and Jenny’s approach has made it relatively easy to grow the team at Bury St Edmunds Veterinary Centre and has also helped keep that team together.

After more than three years in business, the practice has had zero staff turnover – which is testament to the culture Carly and Jenny have worked so hard to foster.

Jenny said: “As well as being really lucky with our recruitment, we have been really lucky in our retainment as well. We haven’t lost vets, we haven’t lost nurses, and we have still got a clinical team turnover of zero because people stay and we just employ more to add.

“So, we haven’t had any replacements or losses, which has been great, and I like to think that is because we create a really good ethos to work for and work with.

“That has helped us build a team that look out for each other and has become friends; they know and they trust each other. And I think they also have quite a huge amount of trust in us. They trust us not to screw them over or let them burn. We will always watch how they are, if they’re happy.”

Investing in people

Carly and Jenny have also invested in an extra pair of eyes and ears by giving every member of the team access to a mental health support professional once a month.

Carly said: “We have an in-house counsellor who comes once a month, and has a session with everyone and we make that compulsory.

“We don’t care if people use that session to drink tea with her, or just sit there and stare awkwardly at her, but it’s a full session nonetheless.

“It’s not about us, it’s about them just having a checking-in session. And a few of our team members have then gone on and had additional sessions with her when they feel the need is there.

“We just try to be as accommodating and flexible to people as possible. We’re just humans and not robots. For us, looking after our team in every way we can is really the number one thing, like everyone had pretty good pay rises recently. The cost of living is huge. And we could do it, so we did.”

With such strong turnover and a healthy profit margin, Jenny and Carly have been able to ensure those pay rises have been significant. On top of pay rises at the start of this year, all staff have now been given a minimum additional rise of at least 9%, with some handed increases of 16% to offset soaring inflation.

CPD budgets are also generous, with the pair investing heavily on training for their team.

“We have very high clinical standards, and I think you would be hard pushed to find a more experienced and clinically excellent team than we have because we were constantly bettering ourselves in raising each other up,” added Carly.

“We spend a load of money on CPD and we don’t really say no to anyone’s CPD requests. Everyone’s constantly getting better.”

Expansion plans

After three years of growth in the area, Carly and Jenny are now starting to think about broadening their horizons with expansion plans now at an advanced stage.

The existing practice in Eastgate Street has four-five consult rooms, two theatres, a separate dental theatre and imaging suite, separate cat and dog wards, and an additional treatment room for cats.

But the practice is fast running out of room and a second site is in the pipeline, while a “vet van” has been acquired to “test the water” in different locations across the area.

Jenny said: “We’ve bought a van to do pop-up clinics. The idea is to get some agreements with various local businesses to use their car parks, so we can do set days in different locations, and we’ve already got lots of competition from the team about going in the van – they are all up for that.

“In the meantime, we keep looking for site number two; here, we have a 21-year lease, but we want to buy the second site because otherwise you’re spending a load of money on something you don’t ultimately own.

“It’s just nice to have the security if you own it.”

Client care

One of the other things Carly and Jenny “own” is their out-of-hours responsibilities. While this obligation is something not all vets and nurses relish, providing 24-hour cover for their clients is very much part of their ethos.

Carly said: “It’s a lovely service to be able to provide your clients. Don’t get me wrong, if the phone goes off at two in the morning, it’s a pain in the arse, but the flip side of that is we pay our staff for it and we pay them. So, at least when the phone goes off at two in the morning, you go, ‘Well, at least I’m getting paid for it.’ And if someone has a really bad night on call, we normally have enough flex that we can get them home early at least.

“Our out-of-hours is not mad and it’s just really nice to have the continuity of care. And we all do it for the same reasons, because we give a damn – that’s why you do this job.

“If we were doing this for money, we would all be in the wrong profession. And if we were doing this for the ego, we’d all be in the wrong profession. We do it because we care – we care about our team, we care about our staff, we care about our patients and we care about our clients. So, when Mrs Jones needs her cat put to sleep at three in the morning, I’d rather it’s me doing it than someone she doesn’t know.”

And it is an approach that the more than 4,000 registered clients at the practice clearly appreciate. Carly and Jenny have never over-thought their approach to client care, instead putting their faith in the idea that if the needs of the team are put front and centre, everything else will take care of itself.

Jenny said: “I think a lot of it is just being human, and talking to them on their level and taking an interest. I’m quite a nosy person and I don’t mind listening to clients’ random anecdotes or whatever it is they’re saying – I quite enjoy that part of the job, so I think that makes things easier. And people feel that they are being heard and that makes them more likely to go with our recommendations.

“It’s not about trying to make sure that ‘x’ percentage of consults also go home with flea and worm treatment or whatever.”

Carly added: “We have a lot of trust within the local community because we don’t want to upsell, we don’t have posters in waiting rooms and we don’t sell food. We just do the best job we can at looking after their pets and people buy into that.”

Inspirational message

Life as practice owners clearly suits Carly and Jenny, but the core of their happiness remains the joy they both share in being able to practise veterinary medicine for a living.

Both feel strongly this joy is being lost by some and are keen to share their positive message with colleagues everywhere, and, in particular, the next generation of vets.

Jenny said: “We recently went to a careers thing at Nottingham and it was just really sad because so many students are disheartened before they even begin their careers.

“A lot of it is just because of what they read online and what they see, and I think that’s wrong. Like us and our team, there’s lots of people that make this profession really work for them and I think, unfortunately, we just kind of see this negative echo chamber on social media, and it just becomes overwhelming for them.

“They think they’re going into a profession where they’re just going to be shouted at by clients all the time, and they’re going to be sworn at and they’re going to be abused. And their managers are going to force them to sell things they don’t want to sell.

“But this is a great job, a wonderful profession and everyone needs to do more to share that message, as we need these baby vets to see that this is just the best job in the world.”

Carly added: “To young vets, I would say this is an incredible profession and to everyone else, I would say why not think about setting up your own practice?

“I mean, it’s not going to be for everyone, but there’s probably a lot more people out there who could do this, set up on their own and have a great life with it.”