Practice Profile: Claro Hill Vets

Staff: full-time vets 2 • registered veterinary nurses 2 • practice administrators 3
Fees: initial consult £TBC • follow-up £TBC

In a town that has long been famous for the quality of its spring water, it is perhaps appropriate that Harrogate’s “indie scene” appears to be bubbling back into life.

Sitting in the heartlands of one of the UK’s largest corporate groups, the number of independents in the town has dwindled following a decade of acquisitions by the likes of VetPartners and others.

But early next year a new independent player will be stepping on to the stage and for Laura Keyser, that’s news worth shouting about.

So, while building work will not be finished at Claro Hill Vets until the end of this year, Laura got in touch to discuss her ongoing journey to ownership, the missed opportunities along the way and her big plans for the future.

She said: “It is all starting to happen now with the build and it is all really starting to come together, which is really exciting.

“I have gone pretty big with the building as we have around 4,000 sq ft to work with, but I wanted to future-proof the business so that as we grow, we don’t have to worry about moving or extending the building we have.

“And I am pleased to say that everything is going to schedule; the floors have been laid, the units are in and the decorators are back in this week to finish off.

“All the big deliveries start to come in December like CT, x-ray and the IDEXX lab kit, and I think that’s probably when the reality will hit me again that this is going to happen.”

Missed opportunities

The fact Laura is installing a 32-slice Siemens Somatom CT scanner as part of the initial fit out speaks volumes for her ambition and also her clinical background, having worked in recent years at Swift Referrals in nearby Wetherby.

Before that, Laura spent her first six years after graduating from The University of Edinburgh in 2008 working for a mixed animal practice in Yorkshire, but the fantasy of “working in a James Herriot style” ultimately came to an end when the farm and equine work stopped, and the practice was sold to one of the big corporate groups.

Laura said: “I almost had the opportunity to buy into a couple of local practices, but sadly they didn’t work out. Despite that, owning my own practice was always something that I wanted to do.

“Looking back, I think missing out on those earlier chances at ownership may have been a godsend, as I probably lacked some of the experience I have now.

“I have since worked in a variety of roles in different clinical settings, including as a clinical director looking after four branches, before joining Swift Referrals when it opened in 2019 and I have worked there since.

“Those experiences have really helped me to feel confident in going it alone and as my two children are still young (four and six years old) and I have the support I need from my family, now just seemed like the right time to do it.”

No place like home

And Laura always knew that the right place to do it would be in – or close to – Harrogate. She knows the town well, having worked and lived locally for many years, and all her market analysis showed the area had the people – and the pets – to make Claro Hill Vets a success.

As well as Harrogate, there are sizeable pet-owning populations in Leeds and nearby Ripon, while a new housing estate opposite the practice in the village of Pannal is also likely to provide plenty of clients when the doors open in January.

Laura added: “I always had my sights set on Harrogate and I did a lot of homework to make sure that the site we eventually settled on would give us everything we wanted.

“We put in a planning application in January this year and it took about four-and-a-half months to get approval to change from a light industrial to veterinary. The builders (Turner Adams Joinery) finally got in the building in September and were on schedule to open early January.

“Of course, there is always that concern that people won’t come, but we have been getting a lot of positive feedback from our social media so far and the website is almost up and running, which will help generate more interest ahead of opening.”

Finding the finance

Due to the size of the build and the high level of equipment on offer, the total cost of the project is likely to be around £650,000 – significantly higher than most independent start-ups.

And with Laura financing the venture as the sole investor, she understands the venture is not without risk.

She said: “I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve got a good broker [ORL Finance] who’s worked in health care for 20 years, which has helped me get the right deals on finance.

“I also got some additional funding from Braemar as well for financing equipment. I know it’s a bit of a risk that I am taking, but I have had a lot of help from my mentor Stuart Cooke, previously at Swift, and that has helped me get the big decisions right and mitigate some of those risks.”

Some might see buying a CT scanner at such an early stage in the development of a new first opinion practice as a risk, too – but not Laura. She added: “Because my past four years have been spent in referral, using the CT and the MRI scanner, I have experience running the CT and interpreting the images. We want to be able to offer that service to our patients and on an outpatient basis to other practices.

“There aren’t many CTs in the area. In Yorkshire, we have access to referral centres like Swift, Frank and Paragon, but most only offer CT as part of a full referral.

“The plan here is for us to be a ‘GP plus’ practice and to keep as much work in house as we can, as well as using visiting specialists (including diagnostic images, cardiologists, oncologists and surgeons) to make sure most of the rest of the work can be handled on site, too.”

Growing room

And there will certainly be plenty of room once the builders have packed away their tea mugs and radios, and the doors open for business.

By knocking two industrial units into one, Laura has created what would by any standards be described as a large first opinion practice with space in abundance for future expansion.

Once the project is completed, the practice will boast three large consult rooms adjoining the reception area, with two surgical theatres and a separate theatre for dental procedures. At either end of the practice are two mezzanine floors, which will also be put to good use as the business develops.

But planning the layout was not as easy as Laura first imagined. She said: “You might think a big rectangle would be very easy to draw out in terms of plans, but it hasn’t been the easiest.

“In terms of layouts, we’ve got two mezzanines, which will be used as storage initially, but those could be used for a CPD room, more staff space or offices in the future.

“But for now, I knew I wanted good-sized consult rooms and I wanted good-sized theatres. My clinical interests are in soft tissue surgery and the theatres are really good sizes. So, we’ve got a large theatre that could be used for orthopaedics and it is big enough so that you could do a hip replacement in there.

“Also, if we’re doing more first opinion kind of work, you could put two tables in there and do two routine ops side by side.

“So, there’s the scope for expansion there, but we have also tried to think very carefully about the layout and the flow of the building, giving easy access to the pharmacy for everybody, keeping the cattery nice and quiet and out the way, and we’ve got nice big walk-in kennels; a bank of recovery kennels in the prep room – those little touches that make it all work so much better.”

A sustainable venture

In terms of staff, Laura will be opening with two vets – herself and Heather Morrison, two nurses, two receptionists and one extra member of staff to handle admin.

But 4,000 sq ft is a lot of space for a team of just six and the plan is to grow the roster relatively swiftly to ultimately include five vets and a total of around 25 staff.

And Laura is hopeful she can attract the people she needs, despite clinical staff being in such short supply. She said: “We are wanting to expand as soon as we can, but recruitment is the concern for everybody at the moment.

“But I have quite a few contacts and CVs on file, and I hope people will want to come and work for an independent practice that offers the chance to work cases up to a very high level because we have the expertise and the equipment to do that.

“I also want to create a happy and healthy working environment for everyone, with a proper work-life balance. So, we are trying to keep the day shorter and guarantee lunch breaks and time to do other things, and I plan to stick to my word on that.

“I’ve regularly worked 12 to 13-hour days with no proper break. I’ve worked 26 hours this weekend alone, followed by a week of night shifts coming up. I’ve done years of nights on call previously, too. I’ve slept on sofas at work. It’s exhausting and it’s not sustainable, and that’s why I think people are sadly leaving the industry.

“What I want to do is try to treat people well; try to retain them and pay them well – it’s not rocket science, but sadly that isn’t happening in some practices.”

While it can be difficult to mitigate the environmental impacts of building and running a veterinary practice, Laura has made every effort to ensure Claro Hill Vets will be as sustainable as possible.

Every effort has been made to reduce paper use, with vets and nurses using tablets where possible, while consumable saving touches such as digital hospital and digital anaesthetic charts will also help lower the carbon footprint.

Laura said: “We wanted to do what we could with the environment in mind because unfortunately, it is an industry where we use so much paper and plastic and packaging. So, we are trying to recycle as much as we can and the scrubs we’re going to be using are made from recycled plastic.

“We’ve also got solar panels as well to reduce energy use and I want to us to be as sustainable at the start and just keep looking to improve that as the business develops and grows.”