Organisational background

The practice was originally set up in 1984 as an ambulatory equine service with some large and small animals. Over the years it has developed into an equine and small animal practice.

In 2021 Station House Vets was bought out by three of the resident vets – Clare Brash, Lucy Nowell & Vicky Williams, forming a company called Great and Small Limited. They are experienced and dedicated vets who are passionate about providing a great service to our clients and high clinical standards for their pets and horses.

We are a now a well-established team of five vets, four RVNs (one is an ECC certificate holder), two student nurses and a fantastic support team.

Station House Vets offer a full range of small animal services to our clients including visiting orthopaedic and ultrasound specialists and acupuncture.

On the equine side we offer an ambulatory service and an on-site clinic with knockdown box, stables, CCTV monitoring, stocks, trot up lane and lunge ring. We have CR and DR x-ray, mobile ultrasound, a new portable video endoscope/gastroscope and motorised dental equipment. We care for equine clients ranging from pet ponies to competition horses.

We are working toward Investors in the Environment bronze accreditation and encourage team wellbeing (currently a weekly yoga session). We also have a set lunch hour and a 5.30/6 pm finish three days a week.

The continuity of care is at the heart of everything we do. Maintaining the traditional ‘family GP’ approach is one of our core values.

Offering our own out of hours emergency service and maintaining an independent small team ethos means we can focus and maintain the core values our clients have become accustomed to.

Intro video by Clare

Organisation aims & mission

To deliver first-class veterinary care to our clients through our professional team of veterinary surgeons, nurses and client care team within a sustainable work-life balance.

Independent

The three owner vets are committed to remaining independent, family owned and family operated.

Experience

Our team of vets have lots of years of experience between them and all have interests and knowledge across the spectrum of small animal and equine.

Continuity of care

Is at the heart of everything we do. As we are a relatively small team, we get to know our clients as if they are family, and whenever possible our clients will see the same vet.

Personal Service

We provide our own out-of-hours emergency veterinary care, so it is always one of the Station House Vets who will be looking after their clients’ animals 365 days per year, 24 hours per day.

Passion

We are passionate about pets and understand that they are a very important member of the family. We feel privileged to be an extended part of that.

Commitment To Customers

Remaining an independent practice gives us and our clients the freedom of choice, both from a medication and clinical procedure perspective.

Integrity

We keep it real. We will discuss all available options with clients and help them decide the best for their pets and them.

Continuous Learning

We offer fully-supported ongoing training and development to our staff to ensure we remain at the forefront of new technology and protocols.

Teamwork

We have a dedicated team who work together to deliver high customer service to all of our clients so they can expect the best care every time. The nurses, cleaners, reception staff, grounds team and vets all pitch in together. Lorraine, the practice bookkeeper, can sometimes be seen wielding the hoover and answering the phone, such is the feeling of teamwork here. We are all proud of our customer experience.

Fun

Our team work to provide cover 24 hours per day, 365 days of the year between us, so it is important that we incorporate fun into our working and social time to create a long-lasting, successful and motivating place to work.

Keeping it local

We like to work with local suppliers to keep our carbon footprint down. We also like to work with and support our local community.

People

Our team are our greatest asset. We are a very friendly supportive bunch who are dedicated to our calling. Our clients and their pets are very diverse and we feel very privileged to be part of their extended family, as and when they need us.

Place

Located to the North of York and on the edge of the amazing Howardian Hills to the North and the Wolds to the East, your journey to work from any direction is guaranteed to be picturesque. The views from the practice change throughout the seasons and you’ll never get bored of looking at them.

Independent

Being an independent practice enables us the flexibility to offer you a role in a real veterinary practice, with the type of lifestyle that you wanted when you became a vet student in the first place: to be a respected member both of a team and the wider community. We give you control over your clinical choices, the use of your time and the direction of your career development.

Good old fashioned values with a new direction and vision.

We are in James Herriott country and we like to provide a good old fashioned ‘GP’ approach to getting to know you and your family members so we can provide the best service.

New equipment, facilities & services

Since taking over the practice we have invested in new equipment, facilities and services for our clients, including:

• painting the Reception and waiting area and reorganising it so that we now have a dedicated dog and cat waiting area.
• introducing a staff room with sofa and relaxing area.
• investing in a new anaesthesia machine & training.
• purchasing two oxygen concentrators as these are more sustainable/environmentally friendly than buying cylinders.
• investing in a new upper respiratory scope.
• upgrading to a quality new CCTV system within the cattery, kennels and stables so we can keep an eye on pets/animals 24 hours per day.
• automating our vaccine reminders by SMS/email.
• introducing paperless billing.
• recruiting a marketing consultant to help us develop the practice.
• introduced regular equine clinics in dentistry and gastroscopy.
• introducing dedicated clinics for cats over 9 years of age and educating ourselves and clients about the importance of blood pressure in cats over 9.
• engaging with our clients for testimonials around products we sell and services we offer.
• actively promoted our in-house acupuncture services.
• being nominated for Practice of the Year in the Petplan Veterinary Awards 2022 & 2023 along with several nominations for team members.
• running our first equine evening on lameness treatment options, attended by 33 clients and professionals, with 100% satisfaction feedback.
• starting on our journey to become Investors In The Environment.
• invested in new IM3 dental equipment
• investment in ventilation units to improve the working environment for the team and for your pets

Ongoing training and support

Our team of vets, nurses and client care teams are involved in practice supported CPD. Lucy and Vicky are certificate holders, Amelia is well on the way to hers.

This last 12 months alone has seen us attend BEVA dental and vetting courses, two sets of Assosciation of Racecourse Vets (ARVS) meetings, BEVA and BSAVA Congresses, London Vet Show and many others.

We organised in-house anaesthesia CPD for both vets and nurses and weekly clinical team updates. Lunch and learn sessions are popular bi-weekly undertakings and Citation provides useful CPD for all staff.

Social events!

Having a social bond as well as a professional one helps make Station House Vets what it is.

Besides lunchtime dog walks, picnics at work, lunchtime litter picking sessions and general socialising, team members are involved in all manner of equine events including racing, hacking, hunting and riding club activities. We have ladies rugby players, mountain bikers, walkers, runners, climbers and even flamenco dancers amongst us. We often wild swim after work in summer, cycle together or box our horses to the beach.

Cake bakers are seriously respected and we have a range of WhatsApp groups for terrible jokes!

We had a weekly yoga club paid for by the practice over winter and plan an Escape Room and outdoor water adventure and BBQ this summer.

Christmas parties range from crazy golf or the York ghost tour bus and a lovely meal at a local restaurant which can then be followed by clubbing in York. Not for the faint-hearted!

Real coffee machine!

It’s real and it’s really great coffee and we love it. We’re sure you will too!

Here are some examples of articles written by members of our team.

• Sustainable Pet Ownership
• Popular Two-way “Designer” Dog Breeds And Choosing The Right Dog Breed For You
• Equine Dentistry
• Hidden Summer Risks For Your Dog

Finding the right person is more important than anything else.

Having four experienced vets in place already, and aiming to increase this, we can be flexible about the role the new team member takes at this stage.

We are striving to find someone who clicks with us and who would enjoy the lifestyle we offer.

As working mums ourselves we  feel that having a good work life balance is very important.

Where possible we accommodate attending important school events for our team’s children.

We have family social events where husbands/wives/partners and children are also invited along.  Our most recent was a BBQ for the Coronation at Clare’s house where we enjoyed an array of foods from around the World including Polish sausages and Malaysian tea leaf salad, followed by games for all the family!  Rounders unfortunately had to be called off due to rain!

Our Green Strategic Vision is to ensure that we are empowering our whole team, and encouraging our clients to minimise their impact on the environment, in relation to pet ownership and management. We strive to continue to reduce our waste, maximise our energy efficiency and help clean up our local environment.

To support our environmental aspirations, we are proud to be working towards Bronze Accreditation with Investors in the Environment.  As part of this accreditation we monitor all of our energy consumption and manage our waste as efficiently as possible, recycling where we can.  We compost what we can.  We like to work with like minded suppliers, keeping it as local as we can, and working alongside them in their own environmental and waste management initiatives.

We have targets which we monitor our performance against, and we have action plans in place to continue to reduce our carbon footprint.

Our environmental policy is below.  There is a copy of this on the noticeboard, and also a copy on our website at : https://stationhousevets.com/environment/

We continually invest in our team development via paid CPD and ongoing lunch & learn CPD.  We also offer additional CPD, training and support identified as part of a structured development and appraisal review programme.