Organisational background

Vets4Pets Peterborough and Vets4Pets Bretton are two practices that are run by JVPs, Holly Norman (me) and Laura Elder. We’re a team of eight vets, nine nurses, and eight receptionists. All pretty standard, right? I’m not going to witter on about what model of ultrasound we’ve got. Basically, toys, check. No OOH, check. Cake, who cares.

We’ve now got enough drip pumps, according to the nursing team, so I’ve had to buy them multi-parameter monitors instead. I’m not entirely sure what all the squiggly lines mean, but they assure me they’re very important.

So what about the location? Peterborough. Well, it’s not my favourite place on the planet but it does mean we deal with an absolutely bonkers variety of clients. We have everything from clients that cannot afford a consult and have to be dragged in by the RSPCA to clients that are insured up to the hilt and want the best veterinary care possible.

Some days you’ll be working up an atopy case to the gold standard, other days you’ll have to burn your scrubs because the fleas were THAT bad. If you want a nice day out, head to Stamford or Oundle or Cambridge. Leave Peterborough to the clients.

And the team? Right, there’s me, Holly. I run the practices so I’m not on the diary. This means that if you want to book yourself a leg amputation because you’ve never done one before, I can be around to help you. Or I can drink tea in prep and shout things like “YOU’VE GOT THIS” and “WATCH OUT FOR THE FEMORAL ARTERY”.

Laura Elder is the other JVP and is one of the nicest people I know. She loves her imaging and is always around for a chat. She currently balances clinical work with JVP duties and being a mum and never ever gets grumpy. Ever. And believe me, I’ve tried.

Then we’ve got six other vets. They are all at different stages in their career and my job is to make sure that we do what we say we’re going to do. Like blocking the diary out to help the younger vets with surgeries or talking through a complicated endocrine case with the more experienced ones or just being at the end of a phone when it’s the weekend and the blood machine is playing up (try turning it off and on again).

The nursing team consists of five RVNs and four SVNs. They are loud, rowdy and stubborn about animal welfare. God have mercy on the vet that tries to pull a nurse away from an inpatient to help look for an otoscope head that was in their consult room the whole time.

The reception team is what ties us all together. We’ve got eight of them and they are our unsung heroes. Multi-tasking, phone juggling, angry client defusing, debt collecting, diary organising, care plan dispensing, order sorting, caregiving, vet chivvying heroes. So that’s us.

I think we’re a brilliant place to work and the team make me laugh every day. This is a tough profession to be in and your team should be there to lift you up and have your back.

Aims & mission

• Do your job
• Make sure you have lunch
• Go home on time
• Don’t be a knob (to yourself, to each other, or to clients).

Watch back our Interview the Boss sessions

• We want to make pets better.
• We want our team to be happy.
• Happy teams lead to happy owners and happy pets.
• Happy owners and happy pets leads to happy JVPs.
• Happy JVPs like to shower their team with nice things and don’t even wince when someone drops the little clippers (again).

We want you to be able to do your job, whether that be vet, nurse or receptionist. This means that we don’t tolerate bullying or bitching or not pulling your weight.

We want you to be fulfilled and successful at work so we invest in training, in support and we make sure that we have got your back when it all goes a bit wrong.

We are open and honest and laugh a lot at rude jokes. It’s definitely not Fitzpatrick Referrals but then when was the last time Noel had to deal with a flasher in reception or a cat stuck in the ceiling. I think we’re FAR more interesting!