darwin’s evolution to gold standard, cat-friendly clinic
TRANSCRIPT
Vet TimesThe website for the veterinary professionhttps://www.vettimes.co.uk
Darwin’s evolution to gold standard, cat-friendly clinic
Author : anonymous
Categories : Business
Date : January 1, 2015
• Pet Food Manufacturers’ Association figures show more than eight million cats are kept as petsin the UK. Changing lifestyles mean that figure is likely to rise, so what can practices do to get theirpaws on a larger share of this growing market?
PRACTICE PROFILE Darwin Veterinary Centre, 2 Haig Road, Biggin Hill, Kent TN16 3LJ.
Staff
Three full-time vets; four veterinary nurses; and one receptionist.
Fees
First consult fee: £31.54. Follow-up consult fee: £21.54.
DURING THE BATTLE of Britain, Biggin Hill in Kent provided the backdrop to one of the mostdecisive aerial conflicts of the Second World War.
More than 60 years on and dogfights no longer shatter the peace in this quiet corner of south-eastEngland; all is calm, and at cat-friendly Darwin Veterinary Centre, that’s just the way they like it.
Earlier this year, Darwin became only the 39th UK practice to be recognised as a gold standard CatFriendly Clinic by International Cat Care (ICC). For a small practice with just eight members ofstaff, it is a major accolade and one that owner and lead vet, Sonya Miller- Smith, is rightly proud
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of.
“The cat-friendly accreditation has been around for a couple of years and we got our gold inMarch, so we were absolutely delighted,” she said.
“It had been something I had been aware of since its launch. I’d read a few articles about it andfelt it was something I would like to do for the practice – and me.
“I kept it to myself for the first five months before discussing it with Terri Biddle (vet nurse andDarwin’s new cat advocate), and her enthusiasm and support made me decide we would go forit.”
While the practice was already cat friendly in many ways, Sonya and her team still had their workcut out to make the grade. After sending for the information pack Sonya went through the list ofrequirements for silver and gold practices to establish exactly what needed to be done.
“There was a list of maybe 15 things we were not doing at that stage, which we needed toaddress,” she said.
“We were not contacting our clients with education articles, so we had to start producing anewsletter that we could send out three to four times a year. To celebrate reaching the goldstandard we did a cat special newsletter to tell our clients.
“I head it up and it is written with the help of my two veterinary colleagues (Daniela Fiore andChloe Stone). Once every three months we decide what we want to put in the next newsletter andthrow it open to everyone to come up with ideas.
“For the cat-friendly special, we did a big article and asked our clients to send in pictures of theircats to illustrate that. We got a great response, which was lovely and made them feel involved.”
One of the downsides for Sonya, however, was being forced to get rid of her beloved Geelingcages, which were not big enough to meet the cat-friendly criteria. Fortunately, after a littlenegotiation, she was able to get bespoke new cages made by the same Yorkshire-based firm to fitICC’s requirements.
“We finally managed to convince the company there would be a market for these cages and wewere able to get four bespoke hospitalisation cages and four day cages,” she said.
“They are wonderful – they are fibreglass and warm to the touch, have reduced sound impact forcats and a clear glass, sneeze-proof construction.”
The practice also needed to find a way to create a waiting area that separated cats and dogs, but
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being a small practice, this stipulation required some serious lateral thinking. Thankfully, they’renot short on lateral thinkers at Darwin, and following a chance conversation with one of its clients, asolution was found.
Sonya said: “It turned out one of our clients makes windows and he said he could make us somesneezeproof dividers for the office. So when clients come in with a cat and there are dogs in thewaiting area, we ask them if they would like to have their cat wait in here where it is quiet andstress-free, and we have really noticed an improvement in how calm the cats are.
“We have also instigated twice-a-week cat-only clinics. At the time, I was concerned how our dog-owning clients would perceive this, but there have been benefits for dog owners too. A lot of dogsare scared of cats, which hiss and spit at them in the waiting room, so I think stress has beenreduced all round without those interactions.”
Sonya added: “It has worked really well with cat clinics on Wednesday afternoons and Saturdaymornings. Cat owners seem happy to get up early on a Saturday to come in for the clinics as theyknow it will not be a stressful experience for their pet.
“The Wednesday afternoon clinic we alternate between early afternoon – before the schoolrun – and the evening afterwards. Those clinics are not at capacity, but should that happen, we willstart to run extra clinics.”
Aside from all the material changes and new protocols, Sonya and her team also encourage clientsto “think cat” a little more. This approach led to an informal cat chat evening with clients at thelocal town hall.
More than 100 of Darwin’s cat-owning clients turned up on a cold, wet night to hear the latest onemerging cat diseases, such as triaditis, and Sonya gave a talk on how to make a home cat-friendly. This was followed by a tour of the practice to show owners how being cat-friendly canimprove their and their pets’ experience of visiting the vet.
Sonya said: “It gave clients the chance to see some behind-the-scenes, catspecific equipment andwe also let them in to see the cattery. We got feline forts in from Cats Protection, which I think arereally under-publicised, but are great. They are basically grey plastic blocks with two arches inthem; cats can either hide inside them or sit on top and for the gold standard we have these in allthe cages.
“Cats are complete control freaks and that gives them a choice.”
Developed
While the move to being cat friendly has dominated the agenda at Darwin for the past 18 months, it
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has merely been the latest in a series of developments that have taken place since Sonya boughtthe practice 12 years ago.
“Back then it was not a training practice, or a tier-two practice, and certainly not a cat-friendlypractice as it is now,” she said. “It was very much a local, first opinion practice with pretty poorfacilities.
“We put on an extension that increased the size of the practice by 120 per cent about eight yearsago and divided the cats from the dogs with a separate cat facility.
“I think we spent £185,000 on the extension, which was a lot of money, but I always knew thepractice had a lot of potential with a very loyal clientele and a lot of scope for development.
“But it really wasn’t about increasing revenues; for me, the expansion was more about jobsatisfaction, as I wanted to work with good equipment and to a higher standard than the practicehad previously operated to.”
While not motivated by the bottom line, the changes Sonya made did have a positive impact onrevenue, with turnover growing, on average, by eight per cent per annum until the recession hit in2008.
Like many small animal practices, Darwin has seen revenues squeezed during the interveningyears, but with turnover (including VAT) now at £750,000 per annum, things are finally starting tolook up again.
Team effort
That upturn is, in no small part, due to the efforts of Sonya’s loyal team. With two young childrenand a disabled husband, running such a fast-evolving practice with 2,500 active clients would be allbut impossible without the right support, and Sonya, who trained all four of her vet nurses in-houseand pays them the same wage as a newly qualified vet, is quick to recognise the fact.
She said: “The team is terrific; the vets and vet nurses here are a great team. The vets couldn’t dowithout the nurses, and I would say I am more reliant on my nurse team than my vet team. Theyare highly valued and you can see that is reciprocated. We make sure they do plenty of CPD andall four have specialised in something, which is a massive help. They have even been known topick up my kids from school from time to time. We had a nanny until the eldest was old enough forschool, but having that help from the team here has also been very important.”
Since becoming a catfriendly clinic Darwin has seen a big increase in the number of feline-owningclients signed up and Sonya is confident the business is now well-positioned to make the most ofthis growing market.
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She added: “When I first arrived the split was probably 70 per cent dogs and 30 per cent cats, butwe have definitely seen a growth in the percentage of cats. I would still say cats are just in theminority – but only just. That is probably because people are more likely to have more than one catthan they are more than one dog.
“Also, modern lifestyles have encouraged cat ownership – with more women working outside thehome, dog ownership is more difficult and more people are getting cats, which is great for us.”
During the past 12 years the practice has clearly changed a great deal, but if Sonya gets her way,there could be more to come. She said: “Planning has told us we will not get another inch morepast them, but time has passed and I would love to put on a second floor, have a staff room upthere and another consult room.
“I would like to extend and have a proper cat waiting room, a 100 per cent cat consult room,separate nurse consult room and a separate cat entrance at some stage. We certainly haven’tfinished with developing the site, but we will have to take it slowly and see what happens.”
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The team (from left): Daniela Fiore, Terri Biddle, Sonya Miller- Smith, Louise Neal, ChloeStone and Alice Fleet-Newman.
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A cat consultation room. Right: the pharmacy and feline overspill holding area.
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Preparation area with supplies storage.
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Digital x-ray machine.
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Dental x-ray machine. Right: dog about to undergo tooth extraction.
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Two surgeries can be performed simultaneously in the operating theatre.
The laboratory area.
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Ultrasound machine.
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