14 Jul 2025
When a veterinary practice wins a prestigious national award within a year of opening its doors, you know they must be doing something right. So, when VBJ caught up with April Young at Weeley Veterinary Centre in Essex last month, it was no surprise to discover the practice hasn’t stopped winning since…
Staff: full-time vets 4 • registered veterinary nurses 7 • practice administrator 4
Fees: initial consult £57 • follow-up £53
It would be fair to say that when April Young was gearing up to opening her own practice, she had success planned in from the very start.
She bought a big building with plenty of room for the practice to grow and she opened with a big team, but most of all – she backed herself to the hilt.
Unlike most single-owner start-ups who begin small, April went big – with three vets, two RVNs, one veterinary care assistant, two receptionists and a practice manager all on the payroll from day one.
It was a clear sign of the confidence the dynamic mother-of-one had that her vision would become a successful reality. “I had worked in this part of Essex for almost a decade and so was quite well known in the area which meant I was confident the practice would do well,” she said.
“Owning my own practice is something I wanted from the moment I graduated. So, when friends and relatives offered to lend the money needed to start-up, the time felt right and I went for it with complete tunnel vision.
“I wrote the entire business plan one night when I couldn’t sleep and from that moment there was no going back.
“Before we opened, I set up a Facebook page to keep clients updated and promoted our practice at local events.
“We generated a lot of interest and had more than 1,000 registered clients before we opened the doors in September 2022.
“Other practice owners assured me there would be lots of quiet times for writing protocols and fine-tuning in our opening weeks, but I suspected we would be busy from the very start, so everything had to be perfect.”
Good news travels fast and within a year of opening, Weeley Veterinary Centre had been named Best Vet in the UK 2023 at the BestUKVets Awards, a glowing endorsement for such a new venture.
Voted for by clients, the award must have felt like validation for all the hard work April and her team had put into the practice in those hectic first 12 months.
And the awards have kept on coming, with Weeley Veterinary Centre named best small practice of the year for the past two years in a row.
While April was confident the practice would attract pet owners from day one, she was also well aware of the risk she was taking opening with such a large team.
April said: “When I first created my business plan, I estimated how much we would need to turnover a week, to cover all the salaries and bills. Thankfully, turnover started off well thanks to us being so incredibly busy.”
She added: “We focused on providing exceptional veterinary care from local people who our clients can trust and being a practice that always did the best possible job for its clients and its team.
“Someone once told me that if you concentrate on doing the best job you can for your clients’ pets then the money takes care of itself and that has certainly been the case for us. My motive for opening my own practice has only ever been to allow me to continue working as a vet to the very best of my abilities with people who share my enthusiasm. I have never been financially driven, and I feel we have achieved the right balance of providing unbeatable veterinary care at prices that are as affordable as possible, without risking the financial security of the business.
“Don’t get me wrong, if there’s a quiet week, I start to worry a little bit, but so far, there have not been too many of those. These days I try to simply enjoy quality time with my patients and clients and assume that if a week is down, the next one will hopefully restore the balance.”
It may seem that it’s all been plain sailing for April and her team, but like most things in life, success has only been achieved through a lot of hard work and sacrifice.
While she may have come up with her business plan overnight, April had been dreaming of being her own boss for many years and, following the birth of her daughter in 2018, she now has even more motivation to sustain her initial success.
Alice – now seven years old and an aspiring vet herself – was born little more than 12 months before April pressed the button on her business plans and has spent a lot of time helping her mum build a dream she hopes they will one day share.
April said: “When Alice was born, my husband, Dave, and I had a conversation about how we were going to balance our careers and family life.
“It has been a challenge, especially these past few years, as I have had to put so much into getting the practice up and running.
“But we have managed to make it work and Alice has been really central to this whole project and involved from the very start.
“She was on site a lot with me as the practice was being built and even had her own playroom as well as hanging out with me in one of the consult rooms before we opened. And I know she is only seven years old, but she wants to be a vet and it is my dream that she will come to work here alongside her mum and when I am done I can sell my beloved practice to her for a pound – the perfect way to end my career.”
So, that’s the issue of long-term succession solved. Until then, April believes it is the quality of care provided by Weeley Veterinary Centre that will ultimately ensure its long-term prosperity.
It was this belief that led April to buy rather than rent the building now housing Weeley Veterinary Centre. An early 20th century detached property on the main road through the village, buying the site for £370,000 represented a significant investment, which meant the rest of the budget was tight.
After a protracted planning process lasting more than a year, building work began in the winter of 2021 and was completed in July 2022. The project involved adding a single-storey extension to the existing building and it is this extension that provides the main access to the practice and also houses the reception area and quiet room.
This well thought out space boasts wooden-effect floors while illustrations in pastel shades of light blue and green create a bright and welcoming space for clients, as well as providing easy access to the two consult rooms.
Two good-sized dog and cat wards are located in the main body of the original building, along with the surgical theatre, prep room, isolation ward and imaging suite. Here, April was able to save money by using x-ray safe Knauf board rather than lead lining the room. Elsewhere, money was saved by sourcing much of the furniture and some of the equipment second-hand – including the kennels – while a lot of the finishing touches and painting was done by April and Dave – with more than a bit of help from Alice, too.
And all that work continues to pay off, with 3,000 clients now registered with the practice, including 700 members on the health plan. It’s a busy workload – especially on “Dental Fridays”, which have proven extremely popular with clients – but with four vets and seven vet nurses now on the clinical team, the practice has more than enough to cope.
April said: “The team here is amazing and we do a lot together outside work which really helps build a strong culture. We were fortunate with our recruitment in that there just seemed to be a lot of great people who valued our vision and wanted to come and work at a practice like this, and we have built a really strong team from there.”
The team at Weeley “plays to its strengths”, which means not much orthopaedic work with anything too advanced referred to Christchurch Veterinary Referrals, an independent practice in Ipswich.
Open Monday to Friday and Saturday mornings, all out-of-hours work is covered by Vets Now, which April believes provides the team with a good balance and the rest they need to provide the best care possible.
She added: “That said, I don’t always get the balance right myself, especially being a full-time vet on top of the administrative work that comes with practice ownership, but being a vet is not just my job, it is my vocation and my hobby – I love being a vet and I love owning my own practice.
“It can be tough. I read a lot online by people wanting to open a practice, but not wanting to work weekends, and I worry they have unrealistic expectations. It might not be what everyone wants to hear, but you must be prepared to work every single minute of every single day.
“It’s great to hear of people wanting to open practices, but I don’t think they should underestimate just how much hard work it is. I was given a lovely phrase by a fellow practice owner and member of the Facebook group ‘Vet Mums Who Own’, which is ‘No pressure, no diamonds, and that really helps me when I’m feeling stressed or under a lot of pressure.
“But overall, anyone reading this and thinking they would like to do the same – if you are prepared to put the work in – I’d say go for it, you won’t regret it.”
