2 Jun 2026
When VBJ last caught up with the team at Woodcroft Vets in Stockport, Greater Manchester, the practice was still dealing with the ongoing impacts of COVID-19. Almost five years on and life has since settled down, but now there’s another big event looming, as VBJ discovered when we paid a visit last month…
VBJ
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Image: Woodcroft Vets
Staff: full-time vets 20 | registered veterinary nurses 30 | trainee nurses 10 | admin staff 8
Woodcroft Veterinary Group first opened for business back in 1976 and in a few weeks’ time this much-loved practice will celebrate its 50th anniversary.
And there will be a lot to celebrate on 1 August for a group that has evolved from its historic headquarters in a four-storey townhouse in Cheadle Hulme, to a business employing almost 170 people across 6 GP practices and an 11,000sq ft purpose-built hospital.
As well as providing out-of-hours and emergency care for the group’s branches and dozens of other local practices, the two-storey hospital – which opened in 2019 to replace the old Cheadle Hulme HQ – also serves as a hub for advanced referrals both locally and across the north-west.
It’s a success story that has grown from Woodcroft’s deep roots in the local area with more than 15,000 clients now active across its seven sites, while the hospital stands as bricks and mortar proof that the group has been keeping up with the times over the past five decades.
Clinical director Jenny Walsh explained: “Woodcroft has always built its reputation on delivering a high standard of care and that’s what has driven its growth over the past 50 years. Obviously, I can’t go back 50 years, but ever since I’ve been here it’s always been about delivering a high standard of care and that high standard of care is still there.
“And, of course, over the years the veterinary profession has developed so much and now there are many more things that we can offer and clients now want that to be offered and that has really driven the development of the hospital and referral site.
“But those smaller practices that were based in renovated houses are still loved by our teams and by clients who, in many cases, have been coming back to us with their pets for years and years. And that loyalty is seen in our teams too as we have people here who have been with us for 30 or 40 years, and we’re really proud of that.”
As the group expanded, it added branches in Wilmslow (1997), Handforth (2005), Offerton (2010), and Cheadle (2012) before being acquired by VetPartners in 2016.
And while joining VetPartners inevitably meant changes to the way the business worked, it also provided Woodcroft with the structured support and financial backing it needed to continue its expansion.
Over the years, Woodcroft has developed a strong reputation for employing experienced vets capable of handling a wide range of cases. The practice had also long been handling referral work at various sites dotted around its network, but the extra investment from VetPartners meant the team at Woodcroft could take things to the next level.
Practice development manager Emma Farrelly explained: “This a culmination of 50 years of development evolution locally and we are all very proud of that connection we still have with the community, and since we became part of VetPartners we have really been able to build on that.
“The old hospital that we had was doing a lot of what we still do here, but on a much smaller scale. We progressed from having 2 theatres to having 6 theatres here and we now have 10 consult rooms, as opposed to just 5 at the old place.
“We’d just outgrown the facilities and having the investment from VetPartners meant we could take it to the next level.”
The hospital site is now a true multi-disciplinary centre, offering referrals for orthopaedics, soft tissue surgery, ophthalmology, internal medicine, cardiology, dentistry and dermatology, as well as diagnostic imaging and behavioural medicine.
Physiotherapy and hydrotherapy are also available from Woodcroft’s Cheadle Hulme site.
Having such a varied clinical caseload within the group has also altered the traditional clinical demographic and had a positive impact on the pipeline of talent coming through.
Jenny added: “When I first came here Woodcroft didn’t really employ new graduates, it was all experienced vets and that was the ethos,” she said.
“But when we opened the hospital we reached the point where we were able to start taking on new graduates, which has allowed us to help develop the next generation and provide a supply line of new talent which is really rewarding for everyone.”
Even before the opening of the new hospital, Woodcroft had developed its own hub-and-spoke model, with the six branch sites feeding in referral work, but cases regularly come in from much further afield.
The hospital is run by certificate holders, rather than boarded specialists, which helps to keep costs at a more competitive level for clients feeling the strain of the ongoing cost of living crisis.
Another key aspect of the way Woodcroft operates is its use of the nursing team, with regular nurse clinics taking pressure off the vets and allowing the VN team to flex their own clinical skills.
Emma said: “Every branch has a nurse clinic every day and they are very popular and always fully booked. We charge a nurse consult out at £38 and it definitely helps the nurse team feel valued to charge for their time. It has also really freed up the vets to do other things that only vets can do and provided the chance to develop our nurses – all our group heads of nursing started as student nurses with us and our now really driving that forward.
“Our nurses have a wealth of certificates under their belts that they pass on to the rest of the team, so we have a really strong nurse programme that is great for them as a team but also helps us provide better care, which is the most important thing.”
And this focus on developing the team is something that runs through the practice, with Woodcroft very supportive when it comes to growing the skills base with several first opinion vets who have taken certificates in recent years now working on the referral side of the business at the hospital.
The hospital has a dedicated night team working a 7 days on, 14 off rota, with separate twilight shift and day teams ensuring Woodcroft can remain open to sick pets 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
When VBJ last caught up with the team there were plans to add MRI to the CT machine the practice already has, but as Emma explained, that remains an aspiration for now.
She said: “The space is there for the MRI, and it is still an ambition and has been since we moved in here really. But it is chicken and egg; to get an MRI machine we really need a neurologist, but to get a neurologist, we need an MRI machine.
“We are also working toward offering hip replacements here as that is something that we have historically always referred on.
“We also want to develop the oncology side of things a little bit more and we also want to develop our first opinion sites a bit more and to provide more space for the team there and we are working towards making all that happen.”
Like all practices up and down the land, Woodcroft has also been impacted by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation into the sector and it’s “remedies” which – as part of VetPartners – will mean a certain amount of rebranding at Woodcroft.
Jenny said: “VetPartners has always been a part of our identity since we joined the group in 2016, but we won’t be undergoing a full rebrand, just changing some signage and letter heads and to be honest that is all likely to be handled by the central support team, so won’t disrupt us particularly.
“There has been some negativity around the rest of it though and it can be very demoralising for the team to think that clients aren’t happy [due to CMA press].
“But locally, I don’t think we’ve had an awful lot of pushback directly to our teams. It’s more the bigger national picture that’s portrayed.
“But we have a very bonded client base who generally appreciate what we do and let’s hope we are still doing it in 50 years’ time.”
