Three Counties Veterinary Emergencies (branch of Coombefield Veterinary Hospital), UK

Organisational background

Coombefield Veterinary Hospital is a long-standing practice in the community, started by a gentleman called Mr Perry after returning home from being a fighter pilot in WW2!

It has grown from the ‘James Herriot’ ideal of mixed practice, going on farm calls and spaying cats on the kitchen table – to an RCVS-accredited, purpose-built hospital practice in the same town, with still growing aspirations and ambitions. We are really proud of our practice’s foundations, and it is still really important to us that we are there for the community and their pets.

Three Counties Veterinary Emergencies was set up as a branch of Coombefield Veterinary Hospital in May 2022. Coombefield Veterinary Hospital is an RCVS accredited hospital with a fantastic team of dedicated night nurses already, but it was clear that the traditional ‘on-call’ model of emergency cover where the veterinary surgeon is working during the day on either side was not sustainable. As well as that, we understood that neighbouring practices were struggling, with their teams starting to burn out and unable to recruit. The biggest drain on their team and barrier to recruitment was providing a 24-hour on-call service.

It was time to take a leap – and at a time when other practices may be trying to down-scale or outsource their out-of-hours work, we were going to grow the service we are already providing and set up a branch as an out-of-hours provider to member practices.

Three Counties Veterinary Emergencies as it stands has a total of 3-member practices locally (a total of 10 FTE vet’s clients coming in OOH) but this venture was not set up to make money. It was set up to future-proof the way we work at Coombefield, and to improve the well-being of the teams at the local neighbouring practices.

Although we will in time grow this service – we want to make sure we get it right from the start and develop an out-of-hours provider that we are really proud of and everyone will want to be a part of!

Organisational aims & mission

An exceptional standard of patient and client care is at the heart of what we do – Every day and night.

We strive to be a central hub of clinical excellence in the area – setting up the Three Counties branch of Coombefield is just one part of our ambition to set up a middle-tier referral stream, bring advanced imaging in-house and develop the branch practice.

Coombefield Veterinary Hospital and Three Counties Veterinary Emergencies is part of IVC Evidensia. The core values of IVC is:

‘We Care. We Dare. We Share’.

I don’t normally buy into corporate values, and they are normally a huge turn-off for me – but I can really relate to them if you can bear with me!

Three Counties Veterinary Emergencies was set up because we really care about our clients, their pets, our team, and the wellbeing of the local veterinary community around us. We dared to take a leap, and expand an area that most other practices are looking at outsourcing. We now all share in resources and out-of-hours provision, coming together to be able to deliver a fantastic level of patient and client care when they need it most.

In a recent whole team meeting, we put our heads together and put down our own team values as well. ‘Kindness’, ‘Loyalty’ and ‘Integrity’ are all what we, as a team, identify as our values and what it means to be part of Coombefield Veterinary Hospital.

• We have a fantastic team with a wide range and depth of experience – in the Three Counties Veterinary Emergencies branch of Coombefield, our three night nurses have over 40 years of experience between them!
• We have a large team – and this is so that our staff have the time to deliver a high standard of client and patient care.
• We have hospital rounds every morning – a ‘group huddle’ giving an opportunity to discuss the inpatients in that day, have a debrief from the previous night and plan for the day ahead. It is also time to discuss any difficult or challenging cases you might have and share experiences. As with all hospital rounds, sometimes the discussion can go off in a tangent to include horticultural and culinary advice as well, but we try to stay on course!
• We are a large, purpose-built small animal hospital – the only practice with hospital status and 24-hour patient care within a 20-mile radius.
• We have fantastic facilities and are geared up to be able to provide outstanding emergency medicine and surgery with an in-house lab, blood-gas analyser, a state-of-the-art imaging suite and fantastic surgical facilities.
• We look after one another, and wellbeing initiatives are encouraged and seen through by our ‘Wellbeing Champions’ in the team.
• Lunch and rest breaks are provided, and protected – as well as time worked into the diary to be able to catch up and get on top of phone calls and other tasks.
• We are happy to discuss flexible working arrangements – It is more important to us that you are able to balance your work and home-life.
• We have an open culture, encouraging diversity and our team relationships are based on respect – we have recently welcomed a veterinary surgeon from Afghanistan to the team and we are really enjoying working with him and helping him on his road to membership of the RCVS.
• We are adaptable, and open to new ideas and different ways of doing what we do – always looking to continually improve our clinical standards, protocols and operating systems where we can.
• As a management team, we are honest, reliable and approachable – all colleagues are treated with the same respect and integrity. Innovation and the most brilliant ideas can come from anywhere, so suggestions from all of our team are listened to and given the time that they need.
• We readily invest in our facilities and team.
• We are a progressive and forward-thinking practice – looking ahead to the next chapter of Coombefield Veterinary Hospital. It is the feeling that we are all part of something bigger and more important than ourselves, that keeps me coming back for more every day!

The ideal employee to our organisation is someone that will become an integral part of our team, do everything to the best of their ability and deliver an outstanding level of patient and client care. If they’re any good at baking, that always helps too!