People First Practice in NW London Seeks Vet to Join Expanding Team

Are you looking for a role in a practice where people come first? Would you like to work with 30-minute appointments, breaks and a supportive culture?

Is having a career plan and supportive mentors to help you achieve your goals important?

Do you enjoy working with humans as well as pets?

If so, read on, we may have the role for you.

About Roundwood Vets

Roundwood Vets is a place where pets live well and people thrive. We’re on a mission to become a cooperatively owned (and managed) practice, delivering sustainable, modern care that extends and improves the lives of pets and their people. (Including their veterinary people!)

We’ve been on quite a journey since taking over the practice five years ago when there was just one vet and nurse! There are now more than ten of us and growing. Our objective is to serve more than 3000 families each year across London and beyond using a mixture of old and new methods of delivering healthcare - all blended together.

Our leadership team is responsible for creating our vision (we’ll happily share this with you) and we are now growing the team capable of making this vision reality. This job has arisen because one of our existing team is moving into a brand new role we’ve created, so you are not replacing someone who has left us or burned out.

At the core of our work are our values. These are: honesty, kindness, conscientiousness, fun, teamwork and growth. These are also the basis of our culture, so if they matter to you and you are willing to live up to these things then there’s a great chance you’ll be an excellent fit. It can’t be stressed enough how much a healthy culture matters to us.

We operate a co-operative ownership model so the people who work in the practice and contribute so much of their lives to making it a success, can also benefit from a share of profits generated. That seems only fair as, let’s face it, we all put so much on the line to do this job, there really should be better rewards. When so many others are selling out to corporations, we think a co-operative model is the way forward in helping to preserve our culture and make sure everyone benefits in the long run. 

Alongside the investment we’ve made in the team, we’ve also invested heavily during COVID in systems and equipment to further enhance our standards of care. We’ll show you these at an interview of course.

In terms of what we are like as a clinical practice, we think of ourselves as being a bit like a family doctor. We are definitely here to help the local community and their pets. We believe in giving clients the time and attention they need to make good decisions for their pets and in building strong relationships with clients and each other. So, for example, most of our appointments are 30 minutes long.

Hopefully the message we’re getting across is that we have a clear vision, strong culture and believe in growth opportunities for individuals.  We genuinely want to see all of our team flourish, and be rewarded, as we bring our vision to life. 

About You

We’re looking for a vet with at least two years experience. You’ll not only love solving pet problems but you play well with people too! We are quite busy so we need someone who is past the stage of needing their handheld for the basics, you’ll be the sort of person who is biased to take action.

We need someone with charisma, who can build trusting relationships. Someone who can help clients understand what the right thing to do is by translating vet speak into client speak and also by telling great stories. You’ll most likely be someone who likes to learn and help others to grow too. 

We do have clear guidelines and expectations about how we work together as a team, and we do work hard - but we’re not looking for someone who will work themselves into the ground. The last thing we want is for any of our team to burnout. So we need you to be aware of how to take care of yourself as well.

We’re trying to change the mould for veterinary medicine by creating a great working environment where we care about each other as much as we care about pets and clients. Profit matters, but it’s not the most important thing to us. Our people come first, then pets, then clients - if we get this stuff right, then we know that the financial side of life will look after itself.

So what can you expect from us?

Well firstly, you can expect to work with professional and friendly colleagues who want to help you grow. Growth and development is at the core of what we are doing. 

We also work to a high standard with good equipment in a clean environment, so you can expect the chance to do quality work. As an example, to perform our anaesthetics, we use the best practice meds and everything receives fluids. We use anaesthetic monitors, safe heating blankets, we train, we record incidents so we can review our practice and processes in a no-blame way. We do all this so anaesthesia can be the safest it can be for our patients.

Another example is in our approach to dentistry; we take radiographs and photos of everything. We use the best, well-maintained equipment. We have access to brilliant online training materials. And we practice our skills on cadavers. (We do a lot of dentals - so if you are not a fan or not keen to learn to be a good dentist then we might not be the practice for you.)

You can also expect a friendly, welcoming and open culture from top to bottom. Ego isn’t a welcome guest here. We want humble team-mates. But that doesn’t mean meek, our team are fun and have a good laugh. But none of us is the finished article, we’re all learning, growing and moving forward. And we want to work with people who push us to get better, who call us out with compassion and kind intent when we might be wrong, and gently steer us back in the right direction.

Here’s what one of our vets Emma says about working with us, “I moved to Roundwood to be part of a small independent practice, everyone working together for a common goal to ensure we deliver a gold standard of care for our patients. We expect the same from our clients which means we are selective about who uses our service. We have enough space and time in the work day to ensure a top quality service is delivered. Communication is a key part of this. Jo [medical director] and Nikki’s [practice manager] leadership style makes them approachable and open to suggestions and with access to mentoring support there is room for both professional and personal growth.”

You can also expect support and learning opportunities so you build your skills. This comes in many forms from one-to-one coaching, on the job mentoring, and access to a wide array of CPD opportunities both online and at events. We have memberships of webinar vet, dental training and also professional skills training from VetX. 

You can also expect a fair wage. We’re a small practice, but we want to pay our people fairly. So we have a package that includes a fair base salary with a generous benefits package on top which includes pet care, health care and perk box access and CPD funding. 

And what we need from you

We are looking first and foremost for someone who “gets” what we are trying to achieve and can fit out team culture and values. On application, we’ll send you our values and behaviours statements so you have clarity on what you are getting into!

You’ll have a great way of making clients feel confident in your abilities. You’ll also have confidence in your own abilities and this translates into actually getting the clients to take the action their pet needs more often than not.

 

You’ll be able to perform dentals, routine soft tissue surgeries and medical workups. You’ll be able to use imaging like X-rays and be keen to learn more about ultrasound to help you make good clinical decisions.

We’re especially interested to hear from you if you are a keen sonographer and/or enjoy and are good at medical cases. But mostly we want you if you are a good all-round GP.

You’ll be the type of vet who is OK with working with and helping to advance our standards of care. (Not all vets like this, which is fine, but we like to have some basic guidelines to work with to improve patient outcomes and client consistency.)

You’ll have the confidence to make the right recommendations and be aggressive with your approach when needed, but also the assuredness to make calls without always having to run every test under the sun. We're keen on you having this judgement because being aggressive might get you the right answer, but it’s not going to always be possible for every family. And sometimes the answer is plain without running loads to tests to confirm the obvious. We’re a practice group who likes to do things well, but won’t insist on  running every test, everytime. 

You’ll be a person who can manage time, priorities and gets the work done each day. This also means getting your break times and lunch because you can’t be your best when you’re running on fumes.

There are a few other things we’d like you to feel good about:

•    "us" - your vet tribe.

•    Your clients - if you can do clients then you can do vet med. If you can't then you are in trouble.

•    Your patients (obvs).

•    You.

•    Really, YOU in quite a big way.

•    Money and not be embarrassed or ashamed of it. It'll never come first, but it is there and we all need to work on this.

•    We want you to be willing to learn and grow.

•    We want you to help others in the team learn and grow.

•    We want you to be willing to be amazing.

•    We want you to leave your ego at the door.

•    We want to laugh and cry with you at the crazy stuff we have to deal with.

•    We want to be able to have a beer (or wine/soft drink of your choice) with you after work.

•    We want you to understand that the owners of this practice care very deeply about helping you get where you want to go and helping you become what you can be.

•    We want you to accept that you are not perfect, that none of us is and that's OK. Failure is OK as long as you learn.

•    We want you to be happy.

If you can do that, we'd be very, very proud to call you a teammate.

The Role

OK, so thanks for reading all the way down. We'd better talk about this role then.

We are looking for a full-time vet (ideally for five 8-hour shifts each week, but we can work with four longer shifts if this suits). You’ll also work a Saturday morning (8:30am-12:30pm) every third weekend. 

During your work days you’ll be consulting, performing dentals, work-ups and medical/surgical treatments - all the things you’d expect to do in a modern practice. We don’t refer a lot and when we do we like to think the specialists have to scratch their heads a little.

There is no on call and only occasional need for anyone to care for an inpatient overnight. Generally our nurses do this.

We are situated a short walk from the Jubilee line so access to and from all parts of London is relatively easy. 

Salary & Benefits

In return for being a great part of this team for 40 hour each week, we offer a great package including:

• Base salary of £35,000-50,000 depending on experience.
• Profit share bonus.
• Share options performance bonus.
• Medical health insurance.
• CPD budget (unlimited by agreement and alignment with practice objectives)
• Perkbox membership.
• Discounted pet care package.

Next steps

If this role sounds exciting and our culture sounds like a place you’d like to work then we’d love to hear from you. To apply, please click on the apply now button below to send in your CV and be sure to tell us a bit more about you and why you'd be a great fit for the team in a cover letter too. (We really like to read these!) 

If you would like an informal pre-application chat then please DM me on instagram @drdavenicol