Practice Profile: Werrington Vets

During their time working together at NuVet in Peterborough, Marwan Tarazi and Nikos Pallas built up a devoted following among the city’s pet-owning public due to their commitment to gold standard veterinary care and customer service.

But six years ago, the dynamic duo split up when Marwan sold NuVet to focus on family and Nikos went off to work for IVC before taking on a senior role with Vets Now.

Despite no longer working together, however, the pair remained firm friends and by 2019 – with Marwan’s family issues settled and Nikos ready for a new challenge – plans for a second coming were at an advanced stage.

This time, though, things, would be a little bit different. Before its sale to Medivet in 2016, Marwan had been sole owner of NuVet, but now the dynamic duo were committed to being equal partners, as Nikos explained.

He said: “I came to the UK in 2014 and went straight to work for Marwan at NuVet, and what attracted me to him was his philosophy about veterinary medicine and about really looking after clients.

“Marwan has always said that good medicine is good business, and I really bought into that and really enjoyed my time there.

“When NuVet was sold, we went our separate ways, but we stayed in touch and began talking about doing something together, which really appealed to me as I had always wanted to have a stake in my own practice.

“So, the idea was that we wanted to do something like NuVet, with the same philosophy, but a step up in regard to building premises – this is much bigger, but it is also a step up in terms of the way the practice is organised.

“We have protocols for everything clinically and also financially – we manage everything to make sure the practice runs perfectly for the team and for our clients and their pets.

“At NuVet, Marwan was on his own when it came to running the place, so everything was kind of left and it was just flowing from day to day. We were not updating our prices depending on what the wholesaler was doing – our prices were always the same.

“So, before we even got started, we fixed all that before focusing on creating a very nice big building with good flow, purpose-built for pets and their needs, and of course, their owners, and it is working out great.”

Planning makes perfect

Getting such an ambitious project off the ground was far from easy, however. Once a suitable site had been selected in the spring of 2019, in an empty industrial unit on one of the main routes into Peterborough, the pair were faced with the monumental task of turning a 6,000 sq ft void into the practice of their dreams.

The first job was to find a specialist architect to help the pair turn their nebulous floor plan into a workable design before the real work could begin, as Marwan explained.

He said: “The difference between NuVet and here was that at NuVet we couldn’t change a lot of the building because it wasn’t mine, so I couldn’t knock walls down where I wanted to knock them down, and also my budget was limited.

“I also had a project manager before, but here it was Nikos and I managing the entire build process, and that was quite a monumental task for a building of this size and this specification as you need to deal with so many different professions.

“It’s not what you see here, it’s what is inside the walls. Like if you have your piped oxygen, that’s a different profession; you need your radiology people to come and check the rooms and give you the reports.”

Nikos added: “We found the contractors ourselves, one by one. We made mistakes because sometimes we thought of the budget too much instead of finding someone that was recommended. So, you will find someone that will give you a cheaper price and you will probably regret it. We ended up spending more for the electrics because we had it changed; the original contractor did a very bad job and left exposed cables and everything. I would say people need to be careful with that aspect as well.

“But it helped that we went around the country looking at practices – like Paragon Referrals – and by the time we came to start, we knew exactly what we wanted.

“Looking back, maybe my advice for people thinking about doing this, with no prior experience, I might suggest employing a project manager. But we coped okay with it all, even though it was a lot of work and stress getting the right people in to do the work we needed in the timeframe we had.”

Laying the foundations

One of the learnings the pair have had is that by using an online floor planner and employing a structural engineer for aspects of the build, it might have been possible to dispense with the services of an architect. However, neither recommended taking this step for those new to this type of project.

Aside from coordinating the myriad tradesmen required, one of the other major headaches was adding the plumbing and drainage for what was always going to be a heavily serviced building.

Nikos said: “Anyone building a veterinary practice into one of these Screwfix-type buildings should always consider the work that is involved in cutting into the concrete slab that the whole thing sits on, as that can be very complicated.

“Because it’s reinforced concrete, it was extremely hard to dig and extremely hard to fix because you had to put the metal rods in again. So, we had issues with the drainage and plumbing and also, to a certain extent, with the underfloor heating that we wanted installed.”

Aside from getting the structural side of the project just right, Nikos and Marwan also had challenges when it came to ensuring they achieved the extremely high-spec finish they were looking for.

Split over two floors with the clinical areas downstairs, and office space and admin on the first floor, every area of Werrington Vets feels well thought out and shouts quality. All walls in isolation, dog and cat wards, prep and theatres are clad with BioClad, which is treated with an antibacterial finish, and the ceiling tiles used are also soundproofed so barking dogs don’t stress cats staying in the ward. And when it comes to the other fittings and fixtures, everything was selected to be of the highest quality the £600,000 budget would allow.

Once clients have parked outside in one of the 26 spaces on offer, they are greeted by a full-height, central reception space, flooded with natural light, separate dog and cat waiting areas, and also a separate area for nervous dogs to be kept away from other patients. The practice features five generously sized consult rooms, including two dedicated to nurse consulting.

Marwan said: “We wanted the clients to feel comfortable when they come in and that is why the reception area is quite big compared to going to some practices, even NuVet for example, where we had to put cats in a certain corner as we didn’t have the space.

“So, you know, this practice gave us the luxury of having a cat waiting area, cat consult room, mixed room, dog room, anaesthesia room.  We have that space.”

A successful return

And despite opening just a few months before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the practice seems to have captured the imagination of pet owners from far and wide.

Two years out from the opening of Werrington Vets in January 2020, it has 3,000 active clients and is now turning over roughly £1.5 million per annum at a profit margin of around 40%.

This means the initial investment of £600,000 has been repaid many times over – so, what’s the secret of their barnstorming success?

According to Nikos, it all comes down to one very simple philosophy. “Marwan has always said that good medicine is good business and I totally buy into that, because it is so true,” he said.

“Everything here is set up to provide the best possible care for our clients’ pets. We sit between a top-end GP practice and referral centre, which means we can do 90% of all work here on site and we use visiting specialists who carry out most referral work on site.

“Another big reason why people came to us is because they are coming to a place where they know the receptionist, they know the vet. We are very good with our communication in the consult room, creating the right relationship. And people just love it.”

Marwan added: “We opened the practice in the same area that I used to own another practice and I had in my contract not to compete with them for three years. So, they’ve had the chance to show off and keep their clients, but inevitably some of those clients came to us when we opened here, although it was not a huge amount.

“Most of our clients are brand new clients who just love the way we do business, but we knew they were there before we opened.

“We did a lot of demographic work, which told us there was going to be a strong market for this type of practice with this level of care; we are also surrounded by corporates so we knew if we got it right and delivered what we promised, the clients would come – and they have.”

Gold standards

To deliver that level of client and clinical care, Werrington Vets has invested heavily to ensure the equipment available to the clinical team is of the highest quality and that they have everything they need to get the job done.

As well as a top-end ultrasound machine, the practice has CR and DR dental x-rays, a high velocity dental machine with suction, an operating microscope, ventilators and a full endoscopy suite – both flexible and rigid.

And there’s been no stinting on the lab either, with machines to monitor blood gases and ionised calcium and also to produce to coagulation profiles.

Nikos said: “A lot of clients in other practices unfortunately don’t know what they are getting for their money; things like not having any monitors during anaesthesia. But here we measure everything: the oxygen, CO2, we have the ECG, temperature, everything.

“And we have the nurse watching all these parameters every five minutes. She takes the readings and puts them through Smart Flow, so it is easy for everyone to see exactly what is going on with every patient at any given time.”

Putting people first

As well as investing heavily in equipment, the practice also invests a great deal in its staff with competitive salary rates for its vet and nurses, and also a generous CPD allowance.

The practice now employs four vets, six RVNs, a student nurse, two kennel assistants, two housekeepers plus a team of four on reception and the practice manager – a role Marwan and Nikos see as absolutely fundamental to the success of the practice.

Marwan said: “We have a very good practice manager.  I don’t think we would have been as successful without Rachael [Geraghty] because she’s taken a lot of the pressure off Nikos, as I don’t do as much as Nikos does, as I am only in two to three days a week.

“So, she has taken a lot of pressure as she is now doing the employee reviews, she’s also a mental health first aider and she has also done a lot of training with the reception team, and is just generally great at helping us create the kind of relationships we want with our clients.

“Rachael also deals with any complaints and any of the other stuff we don’t have the time to deal with, and that takes a lot of pressure off you. You can focus on doing what you need to do and if I have any advice to anyone setting up on their own, it would to to make sure you get yourself a good practice manager.”

Future plans

With the practice running so well and having grown so fast, many might be tempted to keep on that growth curve and see where it takes them.

But that is clearly not the plan for Marwan and Nikos. “We may add more theatres upstairs as we have room to expand there, and it just makes our life easier,” added Nikos.

“But our plan is not to become a six, seven, eight-vet practice, we are happy with what we have. The staff are happy.

“Our clients are happy. We are not going to become a huge practice just because we have a waiting list in place. And we very carefully select how many clients we register every month from that waiting list just to keep us in a good balance. Like if I have six, seven, eight vets, and you book an appointment, which vet are you going to see?”

Marwan added: “I’m not as stressed and it has been a good experience – I think we created something very good and I think we complement each other, which is so important and would be my final piece of advice: if someone is wanting to open a practice, it’s best to do it with someone you trust and know really well – that way you can lean on that person when you need to and it takes a lot of the stress.”

Marwan and Nikos are happy for VBJ readers planning to open their first practice to contact them directly for help and advice.