Clarendon Equine Clinic, UK

Organisational background

Clarendon Equine used to be a part of Clarendon House Vets (Equine and small animal) until the small animal and Equine departments split in 2010 and from this point on Clarendon Equine was run as an independent GP equine vets by Mr Rob Appleton.

Victoria Hall recently bought the business in October 2018 after Rob sadly passed away in 2017. Since 2018 we've been heavily investing in new kit and making lots of changes to the way we work to create a friendly and really well-equipped GP equine practice.

Victoria has a vested interest in making the equine practice work for all of the team as flexibly as possible so we can all enjoy what we do. Although the name has been around for a very long time, we are very much a new business where I welcome all ideas from the whole team to shape what we do so its works for us and the clients.

Organisational aims & mission

We aim to provide a a really good GP equine service in Essex - both ambulatory and clinic-based. We also have connections with Rossdales, Sarcoid Surgery and the Equine Dental Clinic so that we can keep referrals in-house and benefit from following up all our cases where we can at the clinic.

We want to be able to let our vets shape their career path and support their interests - CERT AVP is actively encouraged for everyone!

We are only 2.5 years into our new start and aim to be a practice of at least 3-4 vets working full/part-time. Our Mission long-term is to have a team that can offer general practice and more advanced treatments in-house so we can best utilise the facilities we have for standing surgery and general anaesthesia.

Caring, friendly, approachable and more importantly we all have each other’s back. We are a small team and we always make sure everyone is treated with respect. We're not afraid of change! If something doesn't work we'll change it up and test out different things! We want our team to shape who we are as an independent practice and this is the most important thing for us!

Of course we might be biased but we like to think we're a good bunch! Currently, there are only 4 of us so it’s a tight knit team who are super friendly! We want to make equine practice as flexible as possible for our vets so we're aiming to introduce a 4-day working week for our full time vets or 2-3 day working week for part-time vets. We share our on call rota with two other practices so our rota is at least a 1 in 5 but we're hoping for a 1in 6 or 1in 7 due to additions at our practice and those we share the rota with. We make sure we regularly go out for work dinners and birthdays! We also have office chickens if you like those!

We're looking for a real people person who will love chatting to our clients and really enjoys general equine practice. Someone who also has aspirations to develop a particular interest further via a Cert AVP or already holds one would be great!

Someone with a can-do attitude who understands that ambulatory practice can be a little unpredictable at times (although we do our best to make it as smooth as possible!). Vicky came from a mixed veterinary background so we would also stress that we love vets with transferable skills and those that would love a change (Kelly switched from small animal practice to equine) as we have all done that!