Subscribe via your favourite podcast platform: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Anchor | Breaker | Pocket Casts | RadioPublic

In this week’s episode:

• Vet practice is still a people business – even when tech is everywhere. Ben’s core point: technology sits around humans at every angle, so if the interpersonal bit suffers, the “digital transformation” hasn’t worked.
• Tech burnout is usually “overwhelm + no clarity,” not “I hate tech.” Teams get saturated when tools pile up without time to process why they’re using them, what “good” looks like, and what success is meant to be.
• Bad tech rollouts fail because we ask non-tech people to be dependent on tech. Most teams are tech-enabled, not tech-enthusiasts – so leaders have to design adoption around real workflows (reception, nurses, vets), not wishful thinking.
• The future is “hyper-personalised” journeys that hold the client’s hand end-to-end. Not replacing empathy – protecting it – by gathering the right info early, making consult time higher-value, and giving consistent, reassuring follow-up after the visit.

This episode we deep dive with Ben Sweeney, exploring how veterinary practices can reduce tech fatigue and rebuild trust by implementing digital tools that support teams and strengthen client relationships – without sacrificing empathy.

Additional Guest Spotlights

• Next Episode Sneak Peak: Next time on the Modern Veterinary Practice Podcast, we hear from Francesca Verney and Ian Stroud from Pet People. We dive into what happens when you build a practice from scratch during one of the hardest moments the profession has faced – and choose culture first?
  

Show Notes

• Out every other week on your favourite podcast platform.
• Presented by Jack Peploe: Veterinary IT Expert, Certified Ethical Hacker, CEO of Veterinary IT Services and dog Dad to the adorable Puffin.
• This episode’s guest is Ben Sweeney, founder of Vidivet – a teletriage taking the nation by an orange storm.
• Ben started out in the field over 15 years ago, developing skills in veterinary surgery, leadership, and innovation with the launch of Vidivet in 2021.
• Vidivet is an app-based, 24/7 teletriage service, delivered by an experienced team of vets who act to complete your circle of care. To find out more about Vidivet, check out their page: Vets – VidiVet

Transcription

Jack Peploe:

Coming up on Modern Veterinary Practice.

Ben Sweeney:

I think ultimately we are a people business and you can dress veterinary or however you want, but there’s people at every angle of what we’re talking about and the interpersonal elements of it. But it’s great that we’ve moved away from being a completely paper driven profession, but that transition to being almost driven totally into that tech thing has really advanced at a rated knot in the last 10 years. And you’re sort of speaking to practices now and the like, look, we’ve changed PMS and that’s level one. And then we’ve introduced this tool and we’ve introduced that tool and actually we thought it would do this, but actually it hasn’t done that. Now sometimes there’s a secondary benefit where it’s not done this, but it’s done this that’s positive, but invariably the practices are going well. It’s not quite doing what we thought it was going to do. And I think people have now been using these things for long enough to have that lived experience and go, actually it’s delivering or it’s not delivering or it’s adding burden here. Or I think we forget that not many of our teams are technologists, that we are tech enabled, but not necessarily tech enthusiasts. And we’re looking at it going, we’re asking non-techie people to be dependent and reliant on techie tools.

Jack Peploe:

Welcome to the Modern Veterinary Practice Podcast. I’m your host and veterinary IT expert, Jack Peploe coming to you live from the London Vet Show. In this very special episode, I’m joined by Ben Sweeney, founder of Vidivet to explore a question at the heart of modern veterinary care with technology everywhere in practice life. What about the people? Together we dive into how practices can balance innovation with empathy, prevent tech burnout, and use digital tools to strengthen, not replace human connection.

Ben Sweeney:

Nice to be here, Jack. Hi. Hi everyone. My name’s Ben. I like orange. We couldn’t have guessed that, Right?

Jack Peploe:

So let’s start with what we’re all feeling right now, which I think is fair to say tech saturation. Over the past few years, practices have been promised the world with new tools and systems, but many peoples are feeling like they’ve ended up with more admin, more noise, and would we say less time. Now, Ben, you’ve mentioned this quite a few times, the idea of people being a bit burnt by bad experiences. What are you seeing or hearing from teams that inspired that Thought?

Ben Sweeney:

I think ultimately we are a people business and you can dress veterinary or however you want, but there’s people at every angle of what we’re talking about and the interpersonal elements of it. But it’s great that we’ve moved away from being a completely paper driven profession, but that transition to being almost driven totally into that tech thing has really advanced at a rated knots in the last 10 years. And you’re sort of speaking to practices now in, they’re like, look, we’ve changed PMS and that’s level one. And then we’ve introduced this tool and we’ve introduced that tool. And actually we thought it would do this, but actually it hasn’t done that. Now sometimes there’s a secondary benefit where it’s not done this, but it’s done this that’s positive, but invariably the practices are going well, it’s not quite doing what we thought it was going to do. And I think people have now been using these things for long enough to have that lived experience and go, actually it’s delivering or it’s not delivering or it’s adding burden here. Or I think we forget that not many of our teams are technologists that we are tech enabled, but not necessarily tech enthusiasts. And we’re looking at it going, we’re asking non-techie people to be dependent and reliant on techie tools that they may be not as impassioned about as a viewer. And I think there’s a big risk in that.

Jack Peploe:

I mean, I want to come back to that, but I have got another question I need to ask. What does tech burnout ultimately?

Ben Sweeney:

I mean, yeah, tech founder, 10 years of tech companies, this is what tech burnout looks like. But I think in reality, burnout for everybody is different. And I think tech burnout for one person might be, I’m using FaceTime on my phone, whereas tech burnout to somebody else might be, I’ve got these 20 things going on and I just can’t quite keep up with them. And I think it’s such a personal thing, but I think it’s that overwhelm in general of, look, I can’t actually get to grips with what I’m doing, why I’m doing it. I’m just doing it for the sake of doing it. And I think that runs a risk because either you’re not using tools to their full capability or you’re just kind of going along with the flow for the sake of it. And I think that’s where people don’t have the time to process what they’re doing with tech, why they’re doing it and what they’re actually looking to measure as an output of it. And I think people all too often put something in but don’t think about what they can measure as the true success. Do we know if and how this is working? And I think when people are so saturated, they can’t process everything in order to be able to go, right, okay. So I think for me it’s just that overwhelm of too much tech in all angles of our life.

Jack Peploe:

So that’s a fair comment, and I think a lot of that comes down to the preparation, but how much do you think we were pushed into adopting technology too quickly when it comes to periods like COVID, corporate transitions, where do we stand up? Has that been the cause of why we feel so overwhelmed and that we are so in some ways? So

Ben Sweeney:

I think to an extent, I mean I think we’ve all, for many, many years gone, we need to use tech better as a veterinary profession. But like you say, COVID sort of forced everybody’s hands. And I think some of the tech that was out there at the time was used in a way that it potentially wasn’t intended to be. It was sort of not necessarily square pegs, round holes, but that whole was it actually used for the intention in which it was built. And then the problem is it’s ended up being used in that way over a longer period of time and maybe moved away from its original purpose.

So I think there’s an element of that, but I think also everyone was just like, look, our doors are shut. We’ve got to use tech. And I think one of the things that we’ve found that is the way we’ve built our business the way we have is because really to be doing tech well, you have to be focusing on it and it not be a bit part. And I think for so many people, they’ve put tools in place, but there’s not been that thought process of will reception use this in the same way? Will nurses use this in the same way? Will the vet team use this in it? Who’s going to stand to gain from this? And do they understand what they’re going to gain from it? Or actually, are we just expecting everybody to go, we’ve got this tool, learn how to use it and crack on sort of thing. Yeah, No.

Jack Peploe:

No. So that comes down to the managing the expectations. And I want to move on to something else that when we had our initial conversation and you used the term and that really stood out for me. Now we’ve gone through this phase of digital transformation where everything was about scaling and efficiency, but now it feels like we’re circling back to personal relevance, which I think is key. What does hyper-personalization mean to you and how can it show up in a veterinary context both for the clients and for the teams?

Ben Sweeney:

So I think to me, and again, everyone has their own lens on this to me is it means that my needs and my desires are catered for and I don’t have to go outside and do X, Y, z, other things to make it feel like it’s for me. So it’s like whatever systems and processes are in flow make me feel loved, cherished, cured for whether this is in vet practice, anything else, it’s that whole process of this feels as though this is for me and it makes my life easier. It makes it better as a client, but also as a user of tech as well.

Jack Peploe:

I mean obviously sometimes it feels like we’re lacking that. I mean, I can speak from a personal experience. My poor dog has got osteosarcoma, just had its leg amputated. It’s cost me about, I think in total with all the surgery and all the scans and about 10 grand and I don’t feel like I got 10 grand’s worth of experience. Maybe from a clinical side. It’s fantastic. I can’t fault that and I can’t judge that. Other than that she has lost a leg. But it does feel like I didn’t get that personal experience. Would you say that that’s a fair representation?

Ben Sweeney:

So I think money and experience is always a difficult thing. Again, it means different things to different people. I think one of the biggest things for me is going like, look, whether you’re paying for something, whether you’re not paying for something, it’s has it delivered on my expectation. I think the problem is when you’re looking at clinical teams, clinical teams all across, not just the UK but globally are stretched. And I’ve never met a single vet that doesn’t want to deliver a really excellent service to every client that we meet, but I think the reality is we do not have the time to sit. I would love to sit down post operation, go right, okay, Jack, this is what the next 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 12 weeks will look like for you. But actually what tech has enabled is for us to give you a flyer. I go a digital flyer because we’re saving trees and we go, right, okay Jack, all of the information is here and we’ve given you the information that you need, but you are left to digest an Osmos like yourself.

And inevitably, and we’ve seen this, we are say you will have questions off the back of that. Now, in an ideal world, every nurse would sit down with you and go, right, Jack, here’s what this document says. Have you got any questions about it? Have you got any? But to do that, that 10 grand would become 15 grand in time people services engagement. So whilst we would love to be able to do that with physical teams, the cost of delivery then becomes more expensive. And as we all know, eyebrows are raised at vet fees as they are. So that’s where digital personalization and hyper-personalization is this really interesting sphere at the minute.

Jack Peploe:

And from your experience, especially with video vet, you’ve seen quite a number of different practices as have I. What in your opinion is a way or an example of hyper-personalization done really well?

Ben Sweeney:

Shoot the business in the foot here? I don’t think anybody has nailed hyper-personalization from end to end yet in our sector. I think if you look at general products on the marketplace, there’s two things that I really, really love. One Spotify,

I am fairly sure Spotify knows where my kids are in the car and all of a sudden it’s, hang on a second, I was listening to ac dc, why is there a Disney soundtrack playing? Then you sit there, it’s like, who’s in my car? Is my wife in the car with the kids? That is their level of personal understanding is there. And I think, don’t get me wrong, we’re not playing tunes to our patients. There’s a physical element and there will always be a physical element to everything we do, but I think you have to have those goals of if they can do it, we can do it, but how do we do it involving both physical and digital elements of that? My Garmin is you can have 10,000 thousand watches or you’re like, this is my favourite watch because it tells me what’s going on.

I love my running. So it’s like, what’s going on? How much rest do I need? How well have I slept? We can probably become too dependent on it, but for me, doing what I do, this gives me that personalised experience and the data that I need to know to go on. And I think when you look at a veterinary journey, I think the people that will win in the long term are those that hold the client’s hand from the minute that they have a question about their, and it could be any question from, and believe me, we’ve seen it is this basket muzzle for my dog right through to I’ve come down, it’s five o’clock in the morning, my dog’s collapsed on the floor, excuse me, what do I need to do? And then walks them through the process of, here you go, this is what you need to do next.

This is where you need to go. And this is obviously what we’ve done with video vet is look, do I need to go to the vet? If I need to go to the vet, what kind of timeframe do I need to go? What can I expect when I get there? Do I want to book online or do I want a phone call from my practice choice for that client? And then once they’ve made that choice, delivering on that choice, okay, well you’ve selected a phone call, our reception team will phone you back. They’ll phone you back within 10, 15 minutes and they’ll tell you what consults we’ve got available. We know what’s going on with the pet before you come in because that receptionist has got that. And as a result of that, we can then say to you, actually, we think you probably need a double appointment because we know that Labrador is limping and that we’ve possibly got X, Y, Z going on. It’s not going to be dealable within a 15 minute consult. We’ll give you a double appointment. Then once you’ve had your double appointments, it’s like what we want you to do, go home. Here’s your plan. Here is your digital copy of your plan. Have you got any questions about it? If you’ve got any questions, you can send us a message you can do. Is that I think the critical element with it, and again biassed, but it’s what we’ve done really well is create that repeatable journey.

I think so many of the journeys at the minute are when an owner has a query, they might get an answer from a clinic in five minutes. The vet might be free when they pick up the phone, or they might be waiting six hours because the vets are tied up and there’s that lack of consistency. If you can mirror that consistency through every client’s interaction, it builds up that trust and confidence. And then when they go home, it’s that piece of like, right, okay, actually the vet told me I’ve got to give, was it one of these tablets twice a day or two tablets once a day? And it’s all there on the label, but of course is your pet. And for many, many people, I’m still not totally there with the pet parent phrase, but for many, many people I can see the words, but it’s not making sense to me.

I just need some reassurance that I need to give one tablet twice a day. And again, it’s holding their hand at that end of the journey. And I think that to me will be a veterinary journey that is well, and I think, again, hands up to my bias, but that is an augmentation of digital and physical teams. We’ve built a team that’s a wraparound team for every clinic because in-house resource is expensive, but you also want to focus it to revenue generating work and building that relationship with the client, not a lot of the other stuff around it that takes up time and ends up your operating costs.

Jack Peploe:

It’s the invisible aspect of technology, which I think is quite key. So let’s move to the more on the human element. It’s easy to get caught up in dashboards, ai, alternations and metrics, but at the end of the day, we are a people business. And I think that’s really, really important. And today’s title is all about is when we add all this technology, are we making people’s lives better? How do you think we can use technology to enhance human connection rather than replace it?

Ben Sweeney:

Well, I think it’s getting as much information as you can that enables a truly empathetic and engaged conversation. It’s maximising the value of the face-to-face time. How can I get as much information from you Jack about your Labrador before I see you so that when you are with me, I can be totally focused on the problem, not spending half of my time gathering the information that actually before you come in. And that would just be useful for me to know. So I think it’s that whole piece of reception teams are really stretched. I think everybody in any practice would recognise that at the moment. So it’s that whole piece of, again, it’s that digital augmentation of it so that face-to-face time can become much higher value.

Jack Peploe:

I mean at least you can read the person in the room. I mean, I know from experience I’ll probably retain 10%. I think that’s a massive overstatement of the information that is ultimately shared with me during the consult. So I think using basic, even basic forms like Scribe to me is just so incredibly basic. But having something where that gives the opportunity for the clinician to be able to really focus on the client and the patient, which is ultimately what you guys want, but also then having some form of ability where, I mean similar to what we’re doing here, we’ve got all of these sections transcribed and we appreciate, there’s a lot of information that’s going to be shared with you guys and you’ve probably got some questions at the end. And the fact that you are able to then interact with the content, the information at the end that’s no extra strain is all automatically done in the background. And that’s a good example of how technology can enhance and help without getting in the way and ruining the relationship. Because I think that is the concern is technology can strip away the empathy that ultimately defines veterinary care.

Ben Sweeney:

And this has always been the biggest thing with ai as wonderful and amazing as it is, the eq, the emotional intelligence of these, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that. Not every vet has the greatest emotional intelligence all the time, but for the vast majority we can read people. That’s our job is how can I take you from this position of concern to this position of confidence and clarity on what’s the next step in this journey is? And it might be as simple as you’ve come in for a vaccine, this is what you’re going home with. I need you to make sure you do this with your flea and wormer. Or it’s something like, okay, the dog’s got a tumour, and it’s like this is that journey. And I think it’s having that, pulling that all together I think is where sort of we, you’re never going to replace that, but it’s using tools that maximise our opportunity to gather. Even something as simple as saying somebody before they come in, how worried are you? What’s petrifying for one person could be a blip on the radar for somebody else. And it allows us as vets to shape our conversation. I know, okay, I know this person’s really anxious coming in. What can I do about that? How can I as a vet prepare better for this consult and instantly bring their worry level down?

Jack Peploe:

So let’s go to the point you raised this early on in relation to the importance of involving the team, especially like the frontline staff when building or selecting new tools. How would you go about doing that? How would you involve them?

Ben Sweeney:

Involve them? Yeah. I think one of the biggest challenges I’ve seen with now hundreds of clinics is we as service and business and tech providers speak to decision makers in businesses. They get on board with it, they make the decision, they roll it out. And on the different tiers of people in the practice, you have different levels of turnover and so on and so forth. So the communication from the top down has to be incredibly clear. And I think also from the bottom up, what are you worried about? Because especially when you look at AI answering machines and things like that, people are genuinely worried, are you just trying to replace my job? And actually, if they’re worried for their roles, they’re less likely to engage with tools because they’re, well actually, if this doesn’t work, then my job is safe. So they’re encouraging it.

Well, it’s not so much encouraging, but it’s just going like, look, I need you to buy in to the fact that we’re doing this and we’re doing this so that I can help you to actually do the bit of the job that I know that you love, which is engaging with clients here, which is focusing on the clinical problem that’s in front of you. These bits of tooling will help you to do that bit and take this bit that you may be less keen on. But I think it is whatever tool any practice is considering, I would literally just say to them, please make sure you speak to every level of person in the practice because if they’re on board with it, whatever you bring in will fly. I think so many practices have had something brought in, they’ve launched it, nobody’s had a clue about why they’ve been doing it, and it’s kind of just cheated along and never really delivered on its full potential.

Jack Peploe:

So let’s pick on that. I’d love to chat about the AI side. I’m not going to because get carried away and there’s a whole session about that. But what I’ve noticed in the 21 years I think it is that I’ve been in this industry from an outsider’s perspective to a point I’ve noticed that people have had really, really negative experiences with technology. And I think some of that was down to the platforms that we used were very complacent in a way. There was no change and it was almost like this is what you’re going to get and you better just get on with it. Simple. So from a leader’s perspective, how can they go about rebuilding trust when teams have had a negative experience in tech from the past? It’s not just about getting them prepared, but how do we take them from having that negative mindset to going, actually I can see how this potentially could make a difference for the practice.

Ben Sweeney:

I mean, I think with all of it, it’s an understanding. It’s making sure people understand, said earlier, what are we doing? Why are we doing it? What are we looking for as an impact of it? And how are we going to measure that impact? And this is how it’s going to affect you as an individual. This is how it’s going to affect you as an individual. Is that something you want? What are your pain points in work? Because what we assume are pain points for front of house, for the nursing team, for the vet team, for practice management team, we could be completely wrong. We’re assuming that. And I think until we’re engaging in that and go right, okay, because you’ve brought that problem to me, what I would like to do is this, are you up for it? Do you fancy it? Is there anything you’d like to do?

We’re seeing, I think some of the practices that we’ve had launch it really, really well have had front of house teams involved. Our team, we’re quite lucky. We do engagement on onboarding sessions with them. So the whole team understand it. But I think also when you’re hiring new staff, it’s having them in brochures, onboarding packs and so on and so forth so that they understand it as well. But I think it’s that whole, again, it’s really simple. It’s just involving people in the process. What are you worried about? How can I allay your fears? And if I as the decision maker in the practice, how can I get the company that we’re speaking to engage with you to allay your fears? And I think as service providers, we have to make sure that we’re not just speaking to decision makers, we’re speaking to the people that actually use tools day in day out.

Jack Peploe:

And I think some of that’s down to focusing on the team strengths. It’s one thing I’ve seen the receptionist role, it’s almost we’ve come out of COVID, we’ve sort of been extremely overwhelmed by just chucking in all these different channels that people can interact with. So they’ve got to deal with the in-person aspect. They’ve got to deal with the phones, they’ve got to deal with WhatsApp, they’ve got to deal with Facebook Messenger. There’s almost mass overload. And in some cases you’ve got receptionists, you get these incredible receptionists that could do both. They’re very rare. And you’ve got the people that are really good at the in-person stuff and maybe not so strong on the digital stuff. And then you’ve got the vice versa. And seeing the role almost split and become hybrid and really focusing on, you know what you’d be really great at doing digital interaction side. Have you seen much of that?

Ben Sweeney:

I think you starting to see it, especially in sort of the medium upsize practices. Think if you’re a small practice, I mean let’s face it, most receptionists are a Swiss Army knife. They are incredible. I’ve worked with some fantastic reception teams over the years, but they are the bottleneck in the clinic. And I think there’s invariably somebody in the team that’s passionate about it, but then you’ve got to look at it. If that person is a vet, it’s like, well, okay, I might be paying you 75 grand a year. I don’t want you to be sitting on Facebook Messenger. I don’t want you to be sitting on a dashboard replying to messages. I want you to be generating revenue. Who else can we get to drive those cases into the clinic to drive that footfall, to drive the revenue for the business so that we can invest in other stuff moving forward.

So I mean, I think it’s largely limited by size of practice. If you’ve got people that can do stuff. I’ve seen, I mean to take Sanderson Vets as one example, I was really fascinated when I went to watch that they basically put their entire phone team up in an office completely away from front of the practice. No clients, they come in, they’re greeted. Great example of a non-stressed environment for both pet owner but also the team. The person greeting them is their pure focus is on that person welcoming that client, taking them to a seat. And that brilliant, I mean there may well be chaos going upstairs and the phones, but they don’t see that. But the person that’s dealing with the phones they’re dealing with dashboards is focused on that drug. But if you’re a small one vet practice, you may not have the capability to do that, of

Jack Peploe:

Course. So I’m aware that says 30 minutes, I can tell you that that’s not real. I reckon we’ve probably got about five. So looking ahead, we’ve talked about fatigue, the frustration and the opportunity of things like hyper-personalization. What role do companies like ours play in shaping the future responsibly?

Ben Sweeney:

As one of my big bug bears is companies overpromising and under delivering. I think there really has to be honest accountability. This is what we can do for you. This is what we will do for you and this is how we believe that you can measure success. I think companies have to be not promising the earth. One of the best piece of advice I was given was always do one thing and do it really, really well. And I think there’s perhaps a bit too much of a crescendo in companies that are trying to do 30 million things before they’ve nailed that one thing. I think as tech companies, we’ve got to be honest about our capabilities. I don’t think launching products that aren’t ready is good enough anymore because it’s all good. And well, me launching a product to you and saying, right, Jack, can you use this in your spare time and that, but when you are going to somebody else’s business and their business and their reputation is dependent on their relationship with their clients and that client relationship is affected by what you ship as a product. For me not shipping a ready product is not acceptable. I have to be able to look at best practice owner in the eye and say, right, this is ready when you use this, it will

Ian Stroud & Francesca Verney:

Work.

Ben Sweeney:

There’ll always be the odd glitch here and there, but shipping non ready product is not acceptable for me, especially in a clinical,

Jack Peploe:

And I mean kind of on a role reversal. I think it’s also about the end user being prepared in asking the right questions to understand the capabilities of the products so they know what it is that they’re going to get out of it.

I think two is too easy for people to jump in kind of partly blindly and going, great. It does that one function and that’s all I need it for. And it’s not actually going, well, actually, how am I going to get the best value or return on investment from this tool and going, right, actually, yes, it does do that, which is what I need immediately, but actually there are these additional components that I’ve found out about that would be great to integrate, and I’ve got a integration plan with that partner that I’m going to work with to roll out. Fair. Yeah. Cool. So if there’s one message, I promise you, this is the final question. If there’s one message you’d want practice to take away from this conversation, what would it be?

Ben Sweeney:

I think kind of almost ask more questions, be more interrogative, if that’s a word. It is. Yeah, it is. Now you here to here first, feel free to grill us because actually the more practice owners ask about tech, the more our FAQ sections of our businesses grow so that you can bet if you’ve got a question that another practise has got the same question, but they may not have asked it, and then it builds that knowledge base, it builds that learning base, it builds that product roadmap because actually you go, okay, well, what are we doing here? But I think it hold us to accounts. I think there’s too many tech companies will turn around and go, oh, but that’s just what it is. Well actually, if you’re not delivering it, hold us to account and say, well actually guys, you said it would do this. It’s not doing this. And that’s affecting my business. And I think own it. Really. These are your businesses. Tech should be helping it. If it isn’t helping it, then you have to look at your tech stack if you like.

Jack Peploe:

Yeah, no. Cool. Well, Ben, thank you so much for joining me. That was a really, really interesting discussion. I think we’ve been all reminded about the fact that technology doesn’t have to be cold or clinical when it’s designed and implemented with people in the centre. It can actually bring us closer to our teams in some ways and also to our clients and to the purpose that bought us into this profession in the first place. And everyone that’s listening, if you’ve enjoyed it, please feel free to subscribe. The are sessions that roll out every two weeks, they’re about 25 minutes. So whenever you get free time, I know that doesn’t exist. You are more than welcome to sort of jump on hop on, but we’ll obviously continue to explore how innovation and humanity can coexist beautifully in the world of veterinary care. But Ben, thanks again and thanks to all of you for being part of the conversation. Thanks very much. Cheer mate.

Ian Stroud & Francesca Verney:

Recommended resources

Jack Peploe:

For this episode. We’re doing the recommended resource a little differently because this time I’m the one making a recommendation at the London Vet Show. We launched something I’m hugely proud of, Puffin AI created specifically for the Modern Veterinary Practice Theatre. And if you weren’t able to join us over the two days, or if you did and want to revisit any of the sessions, you can now explore all of the talks in an entirely new way. Just head to Puffin Veterinary IT Services and use the code MV pt. From there, you’ll see every session from the theatre. Simply click on the talk you’re interested in and you can actually have a conversation with the content. Ask questions, dive deeper into the topic and explore the ideas that matter most to you. So if you want to catch up on anything you missed or continue the conversation beyond the event, make sure to check out Puffin ai. Coming up next week, we welcome Dr. Ian Stroud and Dr. Francesca Verney, co-founders of Pet People vets in southwest London. Ian, I’m Francesca share their journey of building a practice designed around one simple idea that happy teams create happy pets and happy clients. We explore what it means to design a veterinary practice for humans. First, from culture and wellbeing to leadership and innovation. They open up about redefining success, setting boundaries and creating workplaces where people can truly thrive.

Ian Stroud & Francesca Verney:

We had the opportunity to staff from scratch, and I think that gave us a huge advantage to set the culture from day one to try and recruit the right kind of people who shared our values and to try and do things a little bit differently or a little bit better in certain areas where perhaps there’d been neglect. We also opened at a difficult time for the profession. It was just coming out of COVID and the profession needed a bit of a hug, to be honest, that everyone was struggling physically, mentally, and there have been big changes within the profession. The significantly the corporatization and the change in leadership style that that brought about, and then lots of different things that happened, the rise of technology as well seemed to coincide at that time as well. So it gave us the opportunity to think afresh about how we should approach these things.

Jack Peploe:

That’s it for this episode. All links and recommendations we talked about are in the show notes. Don’t forget to subscribe and share the podcast if you found it useful. In the meantime, thanks for listening and see you next time.