Clinical Director - Merseyside

My Clients are looking for a Clinical Directer to join their team in Merseyside.

Leadership

Identifying with the practice, and engaging with vets, nurses and receptionists to ensure there is understanding and commitment to the aims of the company, will be an essential part of your role. This will require you to demonstrate strong leadership and to create a cohesive team to deliver an exceptional service; low cost must not mean low quality. You will need to communicate effectively to achieve this; active listening, constructive feedback, utilising individuals’ skills, appreciation and praise, will all be important factors in achieving this goal. Morality and emotional intelligence such as perceptiveness and intuition will be significant in identifying and understanding colleagues’ feelings and emotional drivers, and acting on them to ensure the well-being of your team. You will need to embrace reflective learning and be expected to demonstrate an ability to change your leadership style in order to sustain a harmonious working atmosphere for colleagues in their various roles on- site, whilst ensuring commercial success is attained. Leading the way in creating a culture in line with the company philosophy will be key.

Professional Development

The practice recognises that continuous professional development (CPD) needs to be maintained in accordance with RCVS recommendations. The practice offers comprehensive veterinary healthcare striving to minimise external referrals where possible by focusing on internal clinical development. CPD and the opportunity to learn enables colleagues to contribute to the success of the company by generating and communicating new ideas, and is a motivational factor for vets, nurses and receptionists.

You will be expected to oversee your team’s CPD requirements by ensuring relevant CPD is sourced and productively completed and to ensure information obtained from CPD events is cascaded throughout the team.

To manage this area you will need to plan for:

• Lunch and Learns
• Webinar sessions
• Monthly site meetings
• Quarterly clinical vet meetings to discuss clinical frameworks and clinical governance*

Clinical Director Development

As the company evolves and grows, the practice and the Clinical Director role will mature necessitating regular evaluation. To ensure a dynamic forward thinking culture is maintained the role is likely to become wider with company growth, leading to operational reviews and the opportunity to develop group wide structures. Your role will need to accommodate organisational change and diversification, aiding personal and company progression through increased contribution and commercial involvement.

You will be expected to implement new concepts which may be in the form of products or services that will positively benefit the company.

Client and Patient Management

You should ensure that clinical examinations, diagnostic, surgical, dental and medical interventions are carried out with compassionate care, are of the highest quality and minimise patient distress or discomfort to animals under the care of their practice.

Treatment methods and patient care must be based, as far as possible, on accepted up-to-date scientific principles. This implies constant attention to the scientific principles and literature, a questioning and re-evaluating attitude and a preparedness to revise methods in the light of changing concepts.

You should lead by example demonstrating clear, communication with their clients, minimising technical language to enable clients to understand the factors surrounding their pet’s illness. You will need to make sure vets, nurses and receptionists build rapport with clients, demonstrate empathy and offer an excellent level of service which will encourage recommendation within the community and bond clients to their practice. Effective recommendations in the form of best practice for preventative healthcare and at times of illness is expected from all clinical staff.

For all cases you must ensure:

• A written fee estimate is generated for all procedures.
• Consent forms are signed for cases requiring a general anaesthetic, sedation, surgical or medical procedures or hospitalisation.
• Clients are kept informed at least twice a day on the status of their pet and associated cost.
• Clients are contacted regarding laboratory results and other diagnostic tests when available.
• Correct pricing of cases.
• Patient records are detailed and kept up-to-date.
• Clear clinical treatment plans and hospitalisation records are available for all in-patients.
• Full payment is made at the time of the service or product sale.

Financial and key performance indicators

This is a commercial as well as a clinical role. The combination of a well-structured, knowledgeable team delivering best practice, fostering good client relations and having commercial awareness, is likely to result in a positive financial performance. You will need to understand the site’s profit and loss account including the key factors that will affect the clinic’s profitability and will be involved in setting the clinic’s budget on an annual basis. The Clinical Director reports into the Veterinary Business Manager who is accountable for the commercial and financial performance of the clinic overall. Clinical decisions are the responsibility of the Clinical Directors and Operations Director e.g. new products.

Financial performance indicators that you will be responsible for in conjunction with the Veterinary Business Manager in line with the clinic’s budget are:

Wholesaler purchases

• Other purchases including laboratory fees, waste disposal fees and sundry items
• Gross margin
• Practice contribution
• Employment costs
• Sales performance
• Debt control – maximum 1% sales

You will need to understand and put measures in place as necessary to improve key performance indicators such as but not limited to:

• Average transaction value (ATV)
• Invoice numbers
• New client registrations
• Neutering
• Vaccination numbers

You will be responsible for managing the clinical activities of the practice and developing the clinical team to optimise uptake of clinical services. You will have monthly meetings with the Operations Director and Veterinary Business Manager to discuss clinic performance. You will need to demonstrate a willingness to develop financial and commercial awareness in order to perform your role.

Practice Standards Scheme

The RCVS Practice Standards Scheme (PSS) is a voluntary initiative to accredit veterinary practices in the UK. Through setting standards and carrying out regular inspections, the Scheme aims to promote and maintain the highest standards of veterinary care. The standards reflect the requirements of a primary care practice which also aims to facilitate the achievement of high standards of clinical care, and encompass many of the facilities required for veterinary nurse training standards. The scheme also communicates to the public via RCVS branded certification the highest standard of veterinary care.

The practice supports this aim and achieving General Practice status (GP) as a minimum accreditation. You will be expected to have a full understanding of PSS criteria and ensure compliance with all aspects of the PSS at the time of inspection and on an ongoing basis to ensure high standards of veterinary care.

Much of the following list detailed by the PSS can be delegated out to members of your team in accordance with the company structure (detailed in employee handbook) and broadly encompasses:

• Staff e.g. evidence of contracts of employment, appraisals, induction process
• Clinical Governance* and communication
• Out of Hours patient care
• Premises and out-patient facilities
• In-patient facilities
• Diagnostic facilities
• Laboratory and post mortem facilities
• Medicinal Products
• Health and Safety

Marketing and Promotional activity

The practice will be promoting itself as an exceptional- quality, low cost service via a strong digital and marketing presence. This marketing message will be fundamental to the ongoing development of the brand and the success of the company overall. You will be expected to have knowledge of and support all marketing activity and ensure that all staff members are fully aware of and engaged with any promotional activity. Contributions to the website, and social media such as facebook and twitter are to be actively encouraged (in line with the Employee Handbook).

*Clinical Governance – the process of reflecting upon and assessing the efficacy of clinical practice in conjunction with the application of specific measures which create and foster and environment in which clinical excellence will flourish.

Justifiable clinical approaches are to be adopted with all cases when making diagnostic recommendations and discussing preventative healthcare, in order to maintain a reputation of comprehensive quality healthcare at a low cost. Full client understanding and consent must be obtained at this practice for all veterinary healthcare related services and product sales. Pricing of individual cases must be in line with company policy as detailed in the clinic information and discretionary pricing must not be applied.

PURPOSE

They do things differently to help more animals and their humans enjoy life together.

They’ve got the creativity and ambition to believe they can change things for the better.

Pets shouldn’t be just for the privileged few, they welcome people and animals of all shapes and sizes.

They know how special it is to have animals in your life, because they’re pet owners too.

VALUES

Believe in Change - Believing they can find a better way to do things, welcoming change and celebrating success along the way.

Truly Care - Treating people as they’d like to be treated, doing whatever it takes to make people feel better, and taking care of themselves so they can care for others.

Team First - Recognising that if the team wins, they all win. Knowing this is a vocation, not just a role and appreciating the different skills and strengths other people bring.

Gold Standard  -Taking ownership and pride in all their work, always learning so that they can raise the standard, and going the extra mile without being asked.