Caring approach is keyhole to success for city s NuVet

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1 Vet Times The website for the veterinary profession Caring approach is keyhole to success for city s NuVet Author : anonymous Categories : Business Date : February 1, 2010 After more than a decade working for others, Marwan Tarazi decided to branch out on his own. Even though he opened during a recession, he s finding clients quick to spread the word about his fledgling Peterborough practice. IN A YEAR when many existing business owners were battening down the hatches and aiming to ride out the worst recession in living memory, Marwan Tarazi was bidding to join their number by opening his own veterinary surgery. The year 2009 won t have been a happy one for many. However, not only did Marwan and his wife Claudia have cause to celebrate the birth of their second child last year, but he hung up his plate on his own surgery and saw it get off to a flying start. We have been overwhelmed with how things have gone. It has surpassed all expectations, he says. It s certainly a good position to be in, but that s not to suggest the success of his NuVet practice in Peterborough has happened by accident. Much thought, as well as financial and physical investment, has gone into getting the practice up and running, as well as keeping up the early momentum. NuVet which markets its services under the strapline a different approach to pet care was born out of Marwan s veterinary work and training on three continents. Having qualified as a vet in Greece in 1996, he initially returned to his home in Palestine before 1 / 36

2 doing a masters course in aquaculture at the University of Stirling. With that safely under his belt, he returned to his homeland again, where he spent time working in large animal, small animal and aquatics. But he came back to the UK in 2000 and worked for a practice in Peterborough the city that would later provide the base for his own business. After a spell moving around practices in London and the south-east, he returned to Peterborough. By this point, nearly 10 years after qualifying, the desire to set up on his own was starting to burn strongly. He says: By 2005/6, I knew that I wanted to either be a partner or open my own practice. I had bought a house in the Peterborough area, so I was committed to the city. I had looked at a number of partner options before, but I didn t feel they were right for me. So, I started to look around in August 2008 for somewhere for my own practice. He found what he wanted in the form of Hedley House an empty office building that had once housed an electronics firm in Peterborough s Bretton district. Bretton had no veterinary practices, and the site also benefitted from close proximity to the suburb s shopping centre. The property had been empty for a year. It was quite large; my initial plan had been to have a smaller building and possibly look to moving later. But when I found this place for rent, I had this belief the practice would grow in time, so we might as well plan to stay here for a while, Marwan says. Marwan knew he wanted a service-driven practice that provided the best care to clients and patients at affordable cost. And he also had many ideas about how his new practice should look. Enlisting the services of an architect, Hedley House s future incarnation as a practice began to take shape. He explains: I knew what I wanted. I knew, for example, I wanted separate wards and big, comfortable kennels particularly for the big dogs and to have everything meeting RCVS [Practice Standards Scheme] standards. It has been approved at tier two, and we have done as much a possible to design it up to hospital standards in case that is something we decide to do at a later date. Planning permission was achieved within eight weeks from Peterborough City Council and work began on the interior in February NuVet a name derived through extensive discussions with veterinary consultants Onswitch opened for business on May 18 last year, and was approved as a nurse training scheme practice a month later. 2 / 36

3 Onswitch helped make Marwan s vision of his practice a reality, assisting him to draw up a clientfocused business plan, branding and advertising. The practice has already held a number of open days. It also has a regular practice newsletter, a loyalty scheme and special offers for existing clients who introduce their friends. It runs care clinics, and promotes preventive health messages in practice literature and via its own branded website. Part of the NuVet branding strategy was to have visible signage on approach roads. NuVet sponsored signs on the roundabout of the Bretton junction of the A47 Soke Parkway one of Peterborough s busiest roads and the strategy helped drive custom to the fledgling practice. Marwan says: Initially, the roundabout sign was attracting quite a lot of people, but we are now finding it is word of mouth that is bringing in new clients. Customer satisfaction is very important to us, and we are mystery shopped and do regular client surveys. We are always seeing clients who haven t been given options by their vets. Here, we are not driven by making money. We are driven to offer a good service and expect to be rewarded for the service we offer, he adds. We care about the clients and we like to think we offer value. I think we communicate our message clearly to our clients, and they appreciate that when we located here, we did not cut corners. The types of equipment we wanted were all taken into account when we laid out the practice. Layout The size of Hedley House means not all rooms are currently being used, but this means there is plenty of scope for expansion as business continues to increase. A double-door entrance lobby feeds a spacious waiting area, served by a large reception desk and featuring a sizeable retail area. At the time of visiting, there were two consulting rooms one of them used for nursing consults but the practice has scope to increase this to four. Marwan s consult room, in particular, has a large bay window. It is also ample enough to allow for several family members to be present during their animals consultations. At the rear of the practice, a central corridor serves the clinical and ward areas. The large dog ward is sited well away from the small pets and cat wards, but all are a short distance from the large prep area. A separate, lead-lined x-ray room is also situated off the prep area, while a sterile theatre, with double doors and large windows, completes the back-ofpractice offering. Staff areas and utility and isolation rooms are sited to one side of the building, and a staircase in 3 / 36

4 this section leads to offices and a large, yet to be used, room that will one day be perfect for running CPD sessions. CPD is very much in NuVet s future thinking, in particular teaching sessions in laparoscopy techniques. Marwan has been interested in keyhole procedures for some years, and was in a position to offer laparoscopy as a surgical option from day one. NuVet is one of only a handful of practices in the UK to offer the benefits of keyhole surgery, and its range of laparoscopic procedures includes spays, liver biopsies, gastropexies, cryptorchidectomies and liver shunts. Marwan s interest in keyhole techniques was initially piqued when he attended a conference on lap spays in the USA in He decided to attend the North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando the following year, where he took part in a wet lab in the subject. He says: You could either do a two-port or a one-port session, and I decided to go with the singleport option. He was so impressed with the technique, which sees procedures carried out through an 11 mm incision, that he took a working holiday in Denver, Colorado in November 2008 to train in laparoscopy procedures. He performed 18 procedures over the course of five days. We offer it as an option to clients, he says. It is more expensive, because of the equipment we have to use, but it has been proven that it is 65 per cent less painful. There is also a quicker recovery, as it is a smaller incision, and the ligaments are not torn, but cauterised and cut, which is less painful. You can also see what you are doing more easily. It is less invasive and less painful, and once you have mastered it, it is also quicker. By doing this, we are offering owners a new approach. Teamwork From day one, Marwan has been more than assisted in his work by head veterinary nurse Jo Gretton, who also handles many of the practice s management duties. The practice also boasts a qualified nurse, Emma White, trainee nurse Sam Plitsch and receptionist Teresa Sisman. Another member of the team on an occasional basis is Jean-Benoit Lefebvre, a Cambridge-based European specialist in small animal surgery, orthopaedics and soft tissue. His skills mean NuVet can offer referral consultations and surgery that otherwise might have to go to another hospital. Marwan says: We have had him in four or five times since opening, and he is an excellent surgeon. We will only perform surgery here that we think we can cope with, and if we can, then he 4 / 36

5 comes in and does it and we take care of the animal here. With the practice growing, Marwan has started to expand the team further vet Laura Hardwick began work at Bretton at the end of December. The addition of another fulltime pair of hands should not only help Marwan with the day-to-day caseload, but with the practice s out-of-hours work, which he has been doing himself. He says: I knew what I had to do and that doing my own out-of- hours here would restrict my social life. It means I can t leave Peterborough in the evenings, but running a practice is what I always wanted to do, and so I was prepared to do it. It does take its toll on you, but part of the success of this place is I have a great head nurse in Jo. The pair had both worked together before, and Marwan knew the experienced nurse would be ideal for NuVet. Marwan adds: She has spent a career with animals and I have always known that she was hardworking, knowledgeable and everything you need in a great nurse. The clients and the staff love her and value her input. I don t think we would be here where we are now without her. She is invaluable; irreplaceable. A lot of investment, physical, mental and financial, has gone into getting NuVet up and running, and Marwan is quick to acknowledge he has had a lot of support from his nearest and dearest. He says: The family support has been fantastic. Not only did my parents pay for the keyhole equipment, but they and my sister and brother have been very supportive. It has been a real collective effort to get the puzzle to fit together. I needed a lot of help from a lot of close people, and I can t express enough how important that was. But the collective effort more than appears to be paying off. We were always expecting to hire a second vet, but we have been so busy already that we brought that forward some months. If we continue to provide a good service, more people will know about it and come to see us. I believe they really appreciate the service we provide. The people we have hired all have the same ethos and mentality to provide a great service, and I see no reason why we can t continue in that. I do not know what the future holds, but I am hoping for good things. 5 / 36

6 PRACTICE PROFILE NuVet, Hedley House, Rightwell, Bretton, Peterborough PE3 8DJ. Established: 2009 Staff: Six Premises: Ground floor 236 m2 Turnover: 100 per cent small animal Initial consultation fee: 20 Average transaction value: 58 6 / 36

7 Attention to detail is clear in NuVet s spacious and welcoming waiting area, where even the needs of younger pet owners are catered for. 7 / 36

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10 Floor-to-ceiling windows have been used throughout the practice. Shown here are the consult rooms. 10 / 36

11 Floor-to-ceiling windows have been used throughout the practice. Shown here are the 11 / 36

12 consult rooms. 12 / 36

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14 The retail area has been located close to the reception desk. 14 / 36

15 The prep room. 15 / 36

16 NuVet s theatre. 16 / 36

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18 Nurses Emma White (left) and Jo Gretton with a canine patient in the prep area. 18 / 36

19 Hedley House, Bretton was formerly home to an electronics firm before its reincarnation as a veterinary practice. 19 / 36

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27 Brightly coloured, NuVet-branded signs have been introduced on the front and side of the building, as well as on approach roads, to entice potential clients to the new practice. 27 / 36

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32 The lab houses a plethora of equipment, including an Idexx VetLab and an ethylene oxide gas steriliser, vital for sterilising the laparoscopic instruments. 32 / 36

33 The lab houses a plethora of equipement, including an Idexx VetLab and an ethylene oxide gas steriliser, vital for sterilising the laparoscopic instruments. 33 / 36

34 The lab houses a plethora of equipement, including an Idexx VetLab and an ethylene oxide gas steriliser, vital for sterilising the laparoscopic instruments. 34 / 36

35 Marwan, assisted by Emma White and Jo Gretton, treats a patient in the prep area. 35 / 36

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