Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Vet Chat, and today is a pretty special episode for me because I get to interview my old boss. But fortunately, it's an old boss who's become something more of a mate, whilst we were working together, because of course, both being blokes, we were in the minority in the practise, so we had to stick together, just in case we got picked on. But it was a fantastic couple of years for me working up at Westways up in the Northeast, but I learned an awful lot while I was up there, clinically, personally, professionally, and also how to get my ass handed to me on a squash court.

So it was er a couple of good years, so Jason Atherton, my old boss. Safe to say probably the biggest wheeler dealer of the veterinary profession. I just wonder if you can give people a little bit of background on you, Jason, for those who don't know you.

So I suppose it all started at home, initially I was brought up in a a father's business, which was like an agricultural supply company, and that gave me a bit of a flavour for dealing with farmers. He probably is the best salesperson I've ever. Worked alongside him my entire life, and that got me interested in basically dairy farming.

So originally, I went off to vet school to be a large animal vet, I ended up doing a large animal certificate at Glasgow vet school, and one day working in a mixed practise, I decided, Actually, I wasn't sure whether large animal practise or mixed practise was for me, and I was approached by what became my business partner and your fellow er boss as well. Nick, who basically over several games of squash, worked on me to come and join what was Westways. And that was a huge journey, because suddenly I went from being a mixed practise vet, running a small animal surgery, thinking I knew everything, to working alongside, as you're well aware of because you worked alongside them, a whole load of colleagues that you.

A million times more than I did and it was a bit of a wake up call. They still know a million miles a million times more than I, or you possibly will ever know, but we, we just got good at trying to bullshit round it or sending the cases their way. And from that, I think there was 30 employees when I joined Westways, and with the team there we grew by acquisition and opening sites.

23 sites and 205 employees and had great. Great fun, Nick, one of Nick's famous phrases which I still love is if you can drive to work with a smile on your face, what's that worth? And often I found myself driving to work with a smile on my face, and thinking, yeah, I think the guy was probably right.

It was spot on. The problem is anybody who was in the car with you at the time was driving to work with the look of fear of God on their face. I sat there, the only man who, I have to say it's one of them things where, you know, again, I was lucky and again you look back on these influences on your career and.

One of the great things about the culture at Westways was that, yeah, it was busy and at times it was chaotic, but there was always someone to help, and whether it was 11 o'clock at night, you know, there was always a phone that was answered, and I think there's a great lesson there to be taken for bosses because of course, you know, the, the. With several occasions where I might have phoned you up and just thought, mate, I am absolutely up a creek here. And, and sure enough you were there within 20 minutes going, right, OK, what can we do?

Normally with one of your thousands of dogs in tow to donate blood at the same time, just in case. But I think that is something that. It isn't necessarily as apparent in in every practise in the profession in the at the minute, you know, there's sort of with the sort of dilution out of experience out of the profession in recent years, there's maybe been that loss of, Leadership and experienced leadership within it, but obviously at Westways you guys have always had this culture of being led with within and, and I just wonder if you can give certainly clinical directors and practise owners a bit of insight into the structure that you guys put in to, to facilitate that good working sort of team and environment there.

I, I mean, I think that's something that's evolved very much, I think the one thing we never did was stand still, so I think historically, er, cos otherwise you get shot. Historically there was quite a flat structure for quite a while, but as you get bigger and bigger, you can't run that size of business with without empowering your colleagues. And so when it was small, quite of each other up, there was a different skill at practise and so there was always some someone there to.

To help and as we got bigger and bigger, part of what I'm quite proud of being part, you know, why I'm proud of being part of that is as we got bigger actually colleagues grew within that environment, and some, some of these colleagues actually came and saw practise as school children or as students, and now they are running the show. It isn't, it isn't me. I, I'm quite good at interfering, which I'm sure, .

It's quite irritating at times, that's slightly by nature, but there are people in that business that have grown, and even now we've moved on to being a corporate, we, we, part of that corporate journey was actually putting structure into that practise that we have got some sort of line management structure. But the people in that people are the original people that have grown into that role, and that's, that's amazing to see those colleagues flourish. You know, one of the nurses went on to be part of that partners when we formed it because he was clearly very skilled with his IT and er very personable, and he drove a lot of the conversions of computer system that we, that a lot of those practises went on.

I feel incredibly proud to be part of his career, he's now back at Westways as practise manager, so he's become a, He's a button for punishment, but he's come a complete circle, and now he's, you know, part of leading that team that he went from being a, a, a training nurse to a qualified nurse to somebody fairly high up within the support office back round to running a big north. Yeah, and I think that's, it's one of the great things, isn't it? We work in a profession where there, there are so many options and, you know, you and I are obviously examples of that where we've gone down a particular clinical avenue and gone, you know, you've got your certificate with with your cattle, I've got an equine certificate, and yet we both ended up working in small animal practise.

And I think, you know, it's that great, and, and yet you know it does take. A decision on a personal level, doesn't it, to say actually, do you know what, I'm not enjoying this. I could sit here for 40 years and grumble about it, or I could go and do something else and yeah, it may involve a pay cut and it may involve a period of time where you're reinvesting in yourself.

But, but it, it, it is, it's not a closed door. I don't, I don't know about the pay cut, Ben, you're not as good at negotiating as me. Yeah, I, I know what you paid me when I started, so yeah, you're better at negotiating than me.

But it is, and, and for me it's something that you look at and you think, you know, you can literally do anything. You look at people now who are, you know, high up in industry, who are clinical, who are non-clinical. The possibilities are endless.

I mean, I, it's taken me on lots of journeys. I, I did a whole load of TV work with a a TV producer, which led to. 30, 40 different programmes.

Believe it or not, I am quite a shy and retiring type of person, so it wasn't really my comfort zone, but then I got to, Enjoy it, and that promoted the practise. I've got other business interests, so I very briefly boxed. That's led me to a journey of actually owning a gym, those, those skills of managing people and running a business and ultimately most businesses have to be people and customer focused, and so I, I see a lot of similarities in those businesses, obviously veterinary is slightly.

You are dealing with professional people and you are dealing with animals, but still people's health is, is still similar and there are lots of overlaps in, in running those 22 businesses, which I quite like isn't it, because I think one thing that has come to the fore and become very obvious in the last 67 months is how the, the physical delivery of veterinary services is very much a service industry, and if you're not good at looking after your clients, then, you know, your clients have other options available to them. And, and, you know, obviously client care has very much come to the fore in the last 20 years, such that, you know, it, it's very much at the epicentre of every practise or, you know, the, the sensible practises who have a strategy, it's centred around that sort of client. Well, also, the other thing that has struck me, during lockdown and COVID is how amazing team I've got.

So I think lots of different practises, but when I look at the ones that have really flourished, there's been. Good leaders within that practise and there's been a good foundation of culture, it really did concentrate how good those teams are. So I think for me, Westways really did flourish during those times.

People have worked, or colleagues have worked incredibly hard. But, but the all the formula were there, the foundations were there, they really did, you know, the feedback from clients, even in unexceptional times was was amazing, you know, and I think we did. Nothing was perfect during that time, it was incredibly challenging, but we did as best we could and people appreciated that and it made me realise how lucky I'm having such a great team.

Yeah, and I think that's it, isn't it, you know, if you've got people that you can rely on and people can rely on you, it does make that process a whole load easier. But it's interesting, you touch on foundations, and obviously, you know, you've you've laid your family foundations by having 5 kids. And, and of course 40% of them started that journey of going to vet school.

Now I, I find it fascinating because there's very. Much a sort of polar opposites approach from vets, isn't there? It's either like, yes, I would absolutely encourage my kids to be vets, no, I wouldn't encourage my kids to be vets at all.

And I've never really actually heard much in the the middle ground, but obviously, you know, 2 out of 5 have gone to vet school. What, what was your, what was your approach as a parent in that when your kids first come to you and say, Dad, I want to be a vet? I don't, I don't think they ever said that as such.

I've always, you know, you talk about. My life as a vet has very much sort of welded in with, as I think it does for a lot of people, into my everyday life. So, inherently, you know, when the call at 10 o'clock at night to bring a greyhound.

In sometimes or or on a Sunday I need to take a dog with a blood transfusion or I'm going in to help somebody inherently that my children have followed me to work. Some of them, my middle child absolutely hates animals, so. Yeah so, so they, they've all been to work in some sort of format, even if there's been no childcare and they've had to go and sit in the office.

I think my passion for the profession can be quite infectious, and when I look at my two eldest 21 got into Cambridge vet school, one got into Nottingham. Very different children, Tom's very, very bright. He got into vet school fairly early on, credit to him realised that it just wasn't for him, he, he was.

And he turned one, decided he didn't want to be a vet and basically it's an actual science degree. And I'm incredibly proud of that. It's very easy just to be railroad.

He could have wasted a couple of years of his life and he. Actually, you know, and it's quite hard when your dad's in the profession and your mum, she's not a vet, but you've met, you've met Big Mama, she's quite a force to beholder. And he decided he didn't want to be my er daughter now.

Again, did see a lot of practise at school, so did Tom. She's now 4th year at Nottingham and absolutely loving it. It is a little bit embarrassing that within, I think 2nd year she knew more than me, but that's just.

And now in 4th year she's correcting me and writing my notes because they're so appalling, so she's just been practise, and words that I can't even spell, so that's, that's, it keeps you on your toes. And so I've not forced them in in into that at all. I would not want that for them.

But I've always had that conversation and they've seen how much I enjoy it. And also they've spent time with other practises and other colleagues, so that they know what the job's about and definitely Ella's. Absolutely flourishing, she's loved it, she's just got another set of exams and nailed it, which means she must have inherited her mum's brains rather rather than that my ability to get 51%.

As far as I'm concerned, 51's a pass. And a pass is what it's all about, you know, nobody ever asks you what, whether you've got a 21 or a 1, do they? And, and I think that, that, that to me is so important because of course in modern society and in the modern age, we see a lot of people whinging on social media and a lot of what we're exposed to is the negative of the profession, but I think, you know, there are still so many positives of the profession.

And it needs, you know, it does need positive ambassadors to turn around and say, look, do you know what, actually, I love my job, I love getting to do what I do, and I have a great time while I'm doing it. And I think, you know, the more people that are exposed to that kind of, you know, and it is infectious, you know, I mean, God knows we drove the people that we work with absolutely mad. I have no shadow of a doubt about it, especially as you touched on, they are so much more intelligent than the pair of us.

It's when we're kind of sat there kind of going, -huh. -huh, we think we should do this and you, it's almost like that, that parent figure going right now that's OK, you can do that, or would you prefer to do this? Nudge nudge wink wink, let's go down this avenue.

What I particularly like some of the colleagues, you probably are fairly. When she realised that you are trying to manage a case. She knows it's a road crash and she comes and gently speaks to you.

It's, it's, I, I don't know if it's just because it's that bad or she's just so skilled. But yes, it's quite good having people aware of your skill set and supporting you in the right direction. Yeah, I say like for me, everyone was quite happy to leave me in the dental suite and was like, right, OK, he's in his happy place out there.

Oh, he's playing with medical cases, we're just gonna go and just would you like a hand with anything? And I think that. In a, in a, in an appropriate way as it was, actually is such a good asset to any practise because you've got, you know, I was, I was recording a podcast with someone the other day and it was fascinating because he was saying like, you know, actually, we shouldn't be striving to be.

GP vets who just excel at everything because you can't. He said like, you know, he, he's really hopeful that the profession will have GP vets, but who are subspecialists almost within practise and say right, OK, this person's boss at dentistry, this person's great at medicine, this person's great at orthopaedics, and actually when you've got those assets of a team. You, you as a practicer in such a strong position because you can cater to pretty much every case that comes through the door.

Also if you're setting, if you've got colleagues that are exceptional in those, you know, dentistry, medicine, orthopaedics, hopefully they'll drag you a bit further towards their level, er and and that's what's part of, quite good of being part of this profession and part of a big team like that, you know. Just keep you on your toes and I, you know, if I get a medicine, I had a blocked cat yesterday, I was covering somebody who was poorly, so I went in to cover and I was aware, I always think how would how manage this. I sometimes ignore how.

Manage this, but at least it keeps you on your toes. I was aware that somebody else might see this case, and I was also, there's new graduates there, and how I managed it 1015 years ago is definitely not how it's managed now. And, and also, I wasn't afraid to go and ask somebody, I said just what is the current protocol with this because I wanted to manage it properly for both for the patient, but also.

You know, that that's important for the rest of the team as well, that you manage it appropriately and sometimes there isn't the right or wrong answer. But, and also I'm, I've fairly successfully surrounded myself with lots of people who are far better better at lots of things and most things than me, and that's, that's quite good. I just have a different skill set.

Yeah. And I think that's it, isn't it, you know, it's identifying what we're good at and you know, you and I were we're always brilliant at sort of commanding the consult room and, and sort of saying right, OK, look, let's get this all sorted, deal with the firefighting. And then, you know, everyone else deal with stuff in the back, and I think again there's a lot to be said from a team perspective there saying play to people's strengths and it's interesting, isn't it, because you hear people talking about how to improve on your weaknesses, and yeah, it's important to do that, but actually, you know, it's coming more and more to the fore that people say, well yeah, you know, be aware of your weaknesses and try and make them better, but focus on your strengths.

And say look, this is what I do well, this is where I bring the most value to my practise and to my clients. And the other interesting thing is I, I, I did think I was. Almost godlike in the consult room, but actually I've employed a whole load of people that are the next level on, so you sit and watch them in the consult room and you think, so I have now employed colleagues that are like 10 times better in the consult room with me, so they just flourishing in there, so it's, you know, you sometimes sometimes you do think you're good at something and then.

Olympic level consulting person comes in and blows out the water. So I don't think I'm actually good at anything, but that's, I've made a, I've made a success of it. And how do you see things moving forwards?

Obviously there's been, you know, this huge consolidation in the profession in the last. Couple of years especially, and you know, Westways has gone to their partners and you know has continued to to grow and flourish and, you know, you look at that sort of corporatization, but where's, where do you see kind of the next step and the next evolution in the profession? I think, I think there's several, I think there are small independents growing again, which is, is, is great.

We we have some in our area, I get on, I even know those people, I get on well with them. We're we're one big profession. Even as Westways grew, I was very conscious that I didn't open new surgeries right next to a competitor, and I've always got on.

You never know when you might need help, it works both ways, corporatization is going to continue, it's not going to stop. I, I was faced with a position we had a really big practise, I had two much older business partners for myself, much older. You, you were delicate with how you handled that one there.

Basically you guys were just, you know, tapping on heaven's door by the sounds of things. Well, to, to be fair, they came round to see me last week and straight away Jeremy said by you're fat, so there's no point in being. There's no, there's no point in being, you know, we, we say it as it is, I, it's too big a practise to buy, and I always had a vision of being part of a much bigger thing, and, and one thing I've enjoyed of being part of Partners is actually I've surrounded with myself on the ops board, it's full of.

Ex-nurses, ex- practise managers, ex. So there's a mix, a very diverse group of colleagues, but we're all working together to try and basically deliver the best care and look after our colleagues, and that's quite, you know, it's quite incredibly. Important, it's very important to me that that carries, carries on and keep growing that.

And you won't always get it right, you can't be that size of structure and get everything perfect, but if everybody's sort of trying to drive and push in the right direction, we'll, we'll get there. And I think colleagues' quality of life has improved, you know, I, I think. Definitely from the Westways of old, I think the job's got, I think it has improved.

I mean you should strive to constantly try and improve the level of care, people's quality of life, people's working environment, and that has definitely benefited from being part of a, a corporate structure. Who, who thought we'd have a, a scanner in practise on the west r. Newcastle, most importantly, who thought it'd still be there two weeks after it was put in?

I'm not telling anybody that has copped a 70s worth of copper under the floor otherwise. It'll be gone. But I, and it's interesting actually, you're talking about sort of that, you know, the, the improvement of things and the work style and how we go about our day to day business in practise, cos it's something that many, many people are, are striving for, but you know, practises don't necessarily have the bandwidth to be able to do it because ultimately, you know, we are a physical service profession.

But what, what, what steps have you taken as a practise to try and, you know, facilitate people having a work and a life? Sort of separate of each other. I, I, I think one of the first starts of that process was, and I, I can't remember where you were when you joined up, but we used to have a half day week and the half day week was an absolute waste of space because just like the emergency came in, you ended up being there till 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon and then you hit rush hour Newcastle traffic.

You might as well have worked the full day and credit to Nick. He made the decision to. Make it a 4 day week and.

Productivity did not drop. I think everybody's quality. Quality of life improved and also the other big, Move, we got night vets, so we went from the, you know, working a full day and doing the night.

I don't think that would have happened under our independent. Control, because it is a it is a huge cost to make that commitment, but actually the level of care got main there's 3 colleagues that cover most of the night work. The level of care is improved vastly.

There are people that are focused. They've got one of them's got a certificate in night work. It's all improved, and yes, there is a cost involved, but actually I, I think that has improved everybody's quality of.

Quality of life and new grads starting can go in. Spend two weeks mirroring mirroring mirroring those colleagues and learning in that environment, and again it just keeps, hopefully it just keeps constantly improving, and that's the thing, isn't it, it's them kind of things are interesting because I do see people's point when this essay kind of. The less you do in terms of what you're exposed to, the less you're likely to learn, but it is that real balancing act, isn't it, between, Doing so much that you're burning out.

And doing enough that you upskill, like, obviously when I came to Westways, I was as green as you like because I hadn't touched the dog or cat for 5 or 6 years after graduating, so. You know, I wanted to learn as much as I could as quickly as possible. I could already deal with the clients and, and again, you know.

Potentially it's a personality thing where rather than being. Overawed by the people, although, you know, intimidated is the wrong word, you are sort of in awe of them, aren't you, sort of, cos they were well still are phenomenal vets and you kind of sat there kind of going, you know, I want to be that good. And actually if you've got that someone to be aiming for and go, yeah, do you know what, I can, I, I, I, I can learn from you and I can get that from you and I can invest in myself by mirroring you.

But of course, when, when you have this transition to moving away from night work, you know, a lot of the experience I got was 2 o'clock in the morning, where it's kind of like, right, crap, there's nobody else around here. And, and Jill will kill me if I phone Jason at 2 o'clock in the morning. So, OK, let's let's bash on with this.

And you do learn from that, but it's, is it, is it a more risky way of learning, like, you know, how, how do people get that level of experience now compared with how they used to, where it was sort of off the deep end. What what we've done is a new graduate or recently, recent graduate still does 2nd on call, and from that, from that period from about 7 till 10, they are expected to run the show, that is our expectation. But in the background there you've got either a night vet that's got 15 years under their belt or somebody with a certificate that you can go and discuss with cases.

And so for the 1st 34 years of life, we have a second on call, we have a very experienced night nurse team as well, and nurses are encouraged to join that. The sort of things you see out of hours, you aren't going to see during the day. And also, you're never gonna have that experience of having basically one on one mentoring with somebody that really knows what they're doing, because I'm, again, no.

Set of colleagues that I'm in awe of, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable doing a night shift now because it's moved, it's moved into another. Complete different I stats and who knew electrolytes would be important. Yeah people sort of like, someone, someone hands you a card nowadays, it's like, is this a sweet or are there a test on it?

But it's and it and it is like you say, and and it's great from a patient care perspective because you think actually do you know what, we're offering a whole new level of out of hours care to what we were offering even a decade ago. And you think you know that as a professional service is great to be offering. So what's your, what's your aspiration now, what's next, obviously, you know, you're sort of.

Done a hell of a lot for someone who's in their mid-40s. So it's kind of like, right, OK, well, where do we go from here? And I suppose my, my, I've got lots of different goals.

I, I, I, I, one component is, I want a big chain of gyms, that's, that's one goal, which is non-veterinary. So I, I have one of the biggest, gyms in the country, and I want to grow. I think that model works.

I've opened a second one. Veterinary wise, I really. I want to see my daughter and obviously my children flourish in their chosen paths, so that's a big component for any parent, and I actually just want to see my team.

Flourish, so I You never get there, but I want to try and empower as many of my team and my practise to be the best it can be, and that's just a constant evolution. So I've got some smaller practises in the area of joined, I want them to move towards. Strive towards improvement.

Some of them are a little bit old school, so again I populate or ate. I've just sent two of my colleagues over to a little practise in South Shields just to set up those links. You can probably imagine which 22 colleagues they are because they, they are part of my carer team as I call them.

And so I like to see, I, I've, I've had quite a few little practises join and to see them flourish is really, you know. Basically bringing them on board and those teams. And Westways will constantly, I suppose, north east wise I'd love to have my own.

Referral hospital in that group of practises, that might be my 10 year plan, and I would like a global veterinary business that's always so small aspirations then. You gotta think big then. Yeah Well, I think, mate, it's, it's always great to chat, but it's great to hear somebody just, you know, sort of exuding such enthusiasm for the profession, and I think that's something that more of us need to come across on a more regular basis because you think actually this is still something that you can get a load out of, yes, you put a load into it, but you know, I think, you know, we're both very much in the mindset that, you know, if you're put in in the right areas and you, you take, Risks and chances in life, then you know you do get successful stuff out of it.

But I think most importantly of anything, and I think you know we're both probably examples of this is that you find what makes you happy, and I think, you know, it, it, I dare say it pains us both to say it when you turn around and go, Nick, you were right. But you know, when you're travelling to work and you have got that smile on your face, there's a lot to be said for that, and if you haven't got that smile on your face, do something about it. And the next stage on from that, I wake up every morning and I look out my window and think how lucky am I?

Like what is worth that? Yeah. And then I get in the car and drive with a smile to work, so.

It's priceless. I think that's probably about as good a point as you can end on, isn't it, where you sit there and a guest goes, right, do you know what, I wake up in the morning, I drive to work with a smile, and it's priceless. So Jason, it's boss the chat, it's great to catch up and it's great to see and, and learn from sort of, you know, the Westways journey and how you guys have empowered the team there and how that team have really gone on to thrive and excel.

So thanks very much for your time and look forward to watching the rest of the global journey. Thank you.