We are currently looking to recruit a permanent Small Animal vet with a ideally 1 years’ experience to join our team of 7.5 vets. We are an independent practice and do our own OOH and weekends.
We are an independent, busy local practice.
Our normal working day for small animal vets is 8.45am to 6.45 pm on a Monday to Friday and 8.30 am to 3.00pm if working on a Saturday. The exception is that the on call vet starts morning consults at 8am after their night on call and finishes an hour earlier at the other end of the day.
Each vet has a half day off in each week, from 1pm, (or 12 noon if they started at 8am.).
The on call rota would be roughly 1:7 weekday evenings on call, 1:7 Saturday morning clinics and 1:7 Saturday clinics/ weekends on call. (So in every 7 week period they would be expected to do 5 weekday nights on call, one Saturday morning clinic and one Saturday clinic/weekend on call). There is a full day off on the Friday following an on call weekend.
The job includes 25 days annual leave and bank holidays (with a day off in lieu for Bank holiday days worked).
Consultations run from 9am to 11.40am, 2-4pm and 4.30 to 6.40pm. We would normally have 3-4 vets on consults and 3 vets on operating. After 11.40am the consulting vets are then available to perform any procedures they might have admitted during the morning and tidy up their cases. (The consulting hours are slightly different at the moment due to Covid).
We normally expect to get a lunch break between 1pm and 2pm.
We have a large support staff of receptionists, office administrators and nurses.
We offer 3 days paid CPD plus a day at BSAVA or similar conference.
We have full VDS practice insurance which covers all of our employees. We also have a compulsory stakeholder pension scheme which we invite our employees to join after 3 months. We offer BVA membership. We will pay RCVS fees on renewal.
We would expect vets to use their own car for travel to and from the surgery. Mileage is paid for any use of their own vehicle out of hours. There is usually a vehicle available for use on home visits.
We are very keen to ensure that any new veterinary surgeon we employ gets introduced to their working life as a veterinary surgeon in as gentle a manner as possible. We would not expect them to perform procedures they were not confident at, but hope to give the right candidate good mentoring to enable them to progress those skills quickly.
We have a good case load of both medicine and surgery cases.
Everybody develops at their own rate, and moves forward in different areas. So, going on to the on-call rota will depend on their level of confidence at dealing with clients, and once they do start there will always be a partner available for 100% back -up.
We have a qualified vet nurse on-call at all times at night and weekends, and she is on the premises from 7pm - 8am . Some of our nurses are very experienced and this is invaluable for new team members.
We expect our on-call veterinary surgeon to be able to attend to a patient at the practice within HALF AN HOUR of the initial contact from the client, unless they are already attending to another patient.