Hi there and welcome to Vet Chat, a new podcast for the veterinary profession brought to you by the webinar vet. We're gonna discuss all things from clinical cases to hot topical debates. I'm your host Ben Sweeney, and for the first time in my life over the episodes ahead of us, I'm aiming to listen more than I talk, and I can't wait for you to join me for the adventure.

Hi everyone, welcome to Vet Chat. Today's guest is owner and director of Malthouse Veterinary Group, Nat Morris. Now amongst her many achievements, Nat can list that she has won a national debating contest, which, for my money, means that she will just about be able to combat Karen from Facebook's advice er when she has an owner in the room, er, and it maybe give a just.

A slightly more constructive argument that maybe I would in a consult room. I think as well as that, you know, you've recently built your own house from scratch, you, you know, you've got your own practise and you know, you've not really been qualified that long by comparison, that, so it kind of sets a decent precedent for the first decade in practise. So thanks very much for joining us.

Not a problem, nice to be here. So it's obviously, you know, having your own practise is. I dare say, you know, when I started vet school back in 2002, which seems a ridiculously long time away now, you know, that sort of initial dream of having your own practise was very much front and centre for many of us, but in, in recent years with that kind of corporatization of the profession, that, that, that avenue's maybe been closed off to a lot of people, but you know, what, what was your drive and design.

You know, you started at Malthouse in, was it 2014, and then you, you, you bought the practise in 2017, but why did you go down that avenue? Why did you want to buy a practise? I don't want to say it was fluke, but it was fluke to some extent.

I, I never had any intention of buying a practise. It was never on my horizon at all. And I was in my first job and quite keen to come nearer home, and I saw this job advertised for an assistant role.

But with a view to an early succession, as my boss Clive was wanting to retire in the next few years. And I thought, oh, do you know what, I'll go just check out the practise anyway. I don't really want to buy in, but it might be worth a punt.

And then I went there and I just fell in love with the practise. It was just, you know, that classic small community feel about it, and I thought, you know what, maybe I could give this a go. Fair play to you, I think, you know, that sort of is, I think I always.

Maintain anyone who goes into something and goes, well yeah, this is somewhere I could maybe stay, I think, fair play, it's a big sort of leap of faith and of course, you know, initially you've gone in as an assistant in that place, you sort of sort of test it out as it were. And did you know from the minute that you started there that yeah, this was, this was the right place, or was that something that grew in time? It did grow in time and I took the role with no pressure to to do that.

And it was a very different practise when I was there as an assistant. We were mixed, you know, different facilities and things like that, but it was just kind of the team and the community spirit around it. It's a very small practise.

It's probably about 1.5 that practise. It's fairly rural and you know, the the staff and the clients really well, and I think it's quite a unique feel about our practise compared to.

A lot of bigger ones that I've been in and and worked in. So that that kind of came over time and then when it when it came down to the crunch, did I want to buy in, I decided that yeah, that that would be a really good idea and a good fit for me. And obviously, you know, buying in is, you know, that's a massive step in anybody's life, you know, that is a sort of like, you know, I'm sticking my stamp outside the door.

I am embedding myself in this community with that side of things. Now, invariably when you're buying into a practise, there's been the. You know, that sort of habituated client who's been used to the vet who's been there for 2030, 40 years.

And and how did the clientele take to you when you when you came to the practise? The 1st 6 months were really tough because people don't like change. So we actually did lose those people in those 1st 6 months.

So to start off with, I could see the client base going down as opposed to going up, which was quite hard and and quite hard not to take personally as well. And but I I look back on it. Our client base is actually much bigger than it was then and realise that the people we have now are the people that suit me as opposed to suiting my old boss, but it when when it's when you're a sole practise owner, and basically people are saying they don't like you and they don't want to stay with you, it's very hard not to take that personally.

Yeah, definitely. And I think that's something that I dare say every vet in in the country at some stage has come across unless you've been very lucky. I think you're never gonna to keep every client happy all of the time.

But it's really interesting to hear you say that actually you, you, you know, you have grown that client base since you've taken over there. What, what have you done to, to achieve that? I think what we've done is we've found our our niche.

So we market ourselves as a as a good GP practise. We don't try and be anything else. And and our thing is our motto is quality independent care and that's what we try and go for, you know, knowing the clients, knowing the animals, taking our time with them.

And just finding that as our, yeah, I went to a talk once at BSAVA and they said you need to find your, your company motto, you know, Disney has one, everyone has one and and that for us was was the feel about it. And then just really pursuing that and not worrying about being fancy orthopaedic surgeons or anything like that. We just do what we do and we do it well.

I think that is, it's that sort of ability to identify what you're good at, and I think, you know, to, to embrace being a, a, a good or indeed a brilliant GP vet is actually. You know, it's an incredibly rewarding role and and I I certainly I I would never profess to being a brilliant vet myself, but I look at it and go, you know, I know what I'm good at, you know, and, and, and as a practise doing that and and having that run through your whole team as a culture, I dare say is, you know, key to your success. But how, how have the team embraced that sort of period of change?

Yeah, again, the 1st 6 months were tough because the practise needed quite a bit of change to to be the sort of practise I wanted it to be. There was nothing wrong with it before, but it wasn't quite what I wanted. And and it's hard for them.

A lot of them have been there for 2030 years, and then everything's changing, new protocols, things like that. But you know, I've still got the same team for a couple, which I think is really good. And I think for me, my biggest thing was finding my management type and that took a little bit of time to do because I've never done any management before.

And the biggest thing I took from it was not trying to be someone that I'm not. A lot of people said to me. You'll need to toughen up, you'll need to do this, but I'm not that sort of person, and I assume that there wasn't any point me trying to be a bad cop sort of manager because it doesn't suit me at all.

And once I realised I didn't have to be, I enjoy enjoyed it a lot more and we yeah, we've gotten a lot better. Yeah, I think it's almost sounds like you've got that kind of family feel to it, really, where, you know, it's not sort of led by an iron fist as it were. Yeah, absolutely, and decisions we make make together, obviously there is a hierarchy, but I get a lot of input from the team and they want the business.

Well, because they're really invested in it. Yeah, and obviously, you know, sort of key to your, you know, as you say, your practise mantra is quality independent care. Now there's this big almost divide really across the UK profession now where you have, you know, this majority corporate world versus the minority independent world, but what is, what's important to you about being an independent practise?

Making my own decisions with def and I and I'm not saying you can't do that when you're part of a corporate because I know some of them can. I don't think I would manage very well alongside someone or or below someone really. So I, I think for me it's kind of being able to make my own decisions from the top, and not having someone else to consult.

I mean, it means I quite often get it wrong, but at least it's my mistake to make and no one else's. And, and obviously, you know, when you're, when you're at the top and when you're the boss, and when it's your baby, the the there's that. Difficulty where everyone assumes you've, you've got it together, and like, you know, you know everything that's the plan and so on and so forth, but who do you, you know, we expect our staff to be accountable to us as as bosses and as leaders, so who do you make yourself accountable to?

My family really, and my clients and my staff, you know, my family have helped me out a lot. They've invested a lot of time. And trying to get this going for me.

So, you know, I can't just chuck it in and, and, and sell up and say I'm going to stop because then the last 3 years living for nothing, and there's a lot of people who I'm keeping in a job and there's a lot of little old ladies that live in our area that if we closed down, they'd have to travel a long way to a vet practise. And so there's lots of people around me that I hold myself accountable to and there are days and I think, why on earth did I do this? I could just have a job where I walk away and at the end of the day I can forget about it, but I just remind myself of those people when I, when I feel like that.

Definitely and you're obviously one of a multitude of people that I know over the last sort of few years who have young as younger vets have, have made that leap into sort of saying well actually do you know what, I am gonna go and er be a boss and I am gonna go and. And and have my own practise. What, what do you think is it that's sort of leading people into that sort of own independent practise field?

I think in any other career, you come out of university and there's a natural career progression and and you go in at a certain level and and you work your way up, don't you? And I and I feel like a lot of people think with veterary you come out, you qualify. And then really you do the same job for, you know, 40 years or whatever, which is fine for a lot of people, but some people want that progression, and this to me is, you know, apart from going down a residency role or a specialist role, that was the way for me to go and to kind of step it up.

And also some people just don't like working for other people, and they don't like the way they do things and so realistically, the only way to do that is to take it into your own hands. And run your own business. Yeah, and and obviously sort of, you know, especially when you're a small practise like yourself, you know, there's the changing the practise ethos, there's the bringing it forward into, you know, sort of 2020 and beyond, it's educating the team as to how you want stuff to go forwards as you've, as you've mentioned earlier.

You know, there's a lot of time pressures outside of just, you know, the pure clinical role of the. As well. How do you, how do you find your sort of deal with those pressures, and you know, what, what do you manage to cope with those downsides?

I'm not very good at having downtime, like I I think about work a lot when I'm outside work, but I think that's because it's so, so much a part of me and and I'm so much a part of the business. But I quite enjoy the the variety of that. I enjoy the fact that I might have a morning consulting and.

You know, do an X lap and then I might need to do the books in the afternoon and I, for me, that keeps my job incredibly varied. I actually really enjoy all of, all of that sort of stuff. I find employment law very interesting.

I sometimes find the management of that difficult, but that's just because I get on incredibly well with. So it, it's like you said, it's that family feel and you know, no one likes the thought of confrontation with their family. So it's the idea of it for me can sometimes be difficult.

Well, I, I think that's it, is that, you know, potentially it's different stages of life that people are at and and. You know, I, I maintain I was mentally busy for such a long period of time, but actually when you're doing stuff that you're enjoying, it's not necessarily as exhausting as other people might perceive it to be. So I think, you know, it's encouraging that you've had that.

Now obviously, you know, you've had your side project of, well, not. And renovating the house of of building ground into house. How, how have you found that alongside the business?

Well, I just didn't really have the headspace for that at all, so my, my other half did all of that really, and I was just kind of a yes or no woman for the decisions really because we were also renovating the practise at the same time. As well, we got, we got a grant, a European grant when I first took over the practise and reed all the kennels and the operating theatre and created a dedicated cat ward as well. So my head was kind of in that and the practise really.

And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, a house has popped up and yeah, and I was ready for the fun stuff of like the colours and decorating and things like that. It it sounds like you're a proper pocket dynamo by the sounds of things. But obviously sort of like, you know, business doesn't always go strictly smoothly and.

And you know, in, in recent months you've made this decision with, with your branch practise to close that down. And you know, there's this sort of interesting perception of veterinary practise across the world where you know, you start one practise and then you get another branch and then you get another branch and so on and so forth. So obviously, you know, in, in making that change, you've made a really bold move.

What was it, you know, what was it that drove you to that decision and what was the thinking behind that? I think now that I've made a decision, I realise that the branch. Practise was dragging me down more than I realised.

It was a fairly quiet branch, and the idea of it, I guess a lot of vet practises is to employ enough vets so you've got a healthy rota for on call. So quite often practises will spread themselves quite thin across lots of branches. We don't do our own on-call anymore.

We've outsourced it to vets now, so we didn't have that need and the lease was coming up in June, and so we just looked in some some figures and realised that actually financially. The branch was draining us as opposed to helping us. We assumed that all of that turnover was feeding into the main branch and helping it, but it was actually causing quite a big loss at the time I was paying a vet to be over there in the afternoon, only seeing a handful of people at most travelling over there, you know, all the overheads that come with that as well.

I've got sort of chronic health issues myself as well, so the the driving was I was struggling with as well and and I think for me just to put my energy into one surgery is is. Enough to be honest. Yeah, and I think sometimes it is that opportunity to take stock, I dare say, and just sort of go, well, actually, do you know what, we're gonna focus on that core product and, and it certainly sounds like, you know, you're doing it.

Did you, did you rebrand when, when you bought the, the practise, or did you just sort of let it sort of continue as was? Yes, rebranded, so we didn't really have any branding before. It was like Malthouse vets before.

So I had to change it into Malthouse veterinary Group because I changed. A limited company, and you, they're a bit funny about when you put the word veterinary into limited companies. So I had to put the word group on the end of it for reasons that I can't remember now, but I did.

So that it became multi Veterinary Group Limited and yeah, lots of nice branding by a friend of mine who's a graphic designer, so and it, yeah, I was really pleased with the branding. Always good to have someone else that you can network to and say, oh by the way, can you help us out with this side of things as well. Absolutely.

And obviously, like, you know, when you, when you bought the At this, you know, I dare say it's, you know, it's a massive financial risk and a big step, you know, as a family and as an individual. But you know, if you're looking at people who are potentially thinking about this as a move for themselves, what kind of words would you encourage them with in terms of, you know, how to go about looking for finance and how to fund these kind of moves? Well, my experience was that banks are quite keen to fund that practises, and that's what my bank manager said to me, that they're generally a safe bet.

Probably pleasantly surprised when you go and do that. You've obviously got to bear in mind that, you know, at the moment that loan is quite a hefty drain on my bottom line, so I don't expect to really make any money myself in the short term. So just preparing yourself for that really, but obviously as things go forward, I hope that will change.

And just speaking to a few different banks, some, some will lend to you and and some won't. I think you know Say that there's other routes of financing as well, but I think, you know, that, that route that you chose and obviously sort of, you know, very much keeps you front and centre and, you know, not accountable to other people other than to those that you pay your bills to. Yeah, exactly that.

And so that's, you know, obviously if everything went wrong way, then the bank would come away and and take the building and I would be in big trouble. But as long as you are happy you can make the monthly payments, . And they look at that, you know, they look at the accounts, they're not going to lend you the money unless they, they think that you can make it really.

Now obviously, practise is moving at such a, a rate of knots nowadays, that you know, it, it, it's almost daily that you see, you know, a new thing or a new product or a new business that have popped up, that are doing something within the veterinary sphere. But how do you as a, as a, Small practise, see, see things changing in in years ahead. I mean, I think there's always gonna be a market for what we do.

People are always gonna want to bring their their animals to a vets and and you know it's the same as the doctors, isn't there? But I don't think we can ignore telemedicine. I think it's it's coming and so I'd like to think that we'll be fairly flexible about that when it does come, and try and make sure we.

We make it work for us as opposed to ignoring it and hoping it will go away and then finding out that we're losing a lot of business to it. Yeah, I think it is, you know, with any business, isn't it? It's key to be to be forward thinking really, rather than sort of sat looking at the past, going well, much as though those days might have been great, they're not the future.

But but yeah, I think that that's something that I, I personally find really exciting to see, you know, actually how we can help practises. With, with that sort of marketplace moving forwards, but I think probably looking at sort of winding things up, I think probably a couple of key questions. If you had your time again, would you do it again?

I ask myself this all the time. Yes, I would, because I'm the sort of person that wants something like that's plonked in front of me, I would have just thought about it for the next 50 years. So, yeah, no, I, I don't have any regrets about doing it.

And, and is it something you'd encourage. Other younger vets and well I dare say even older vets, you know, who who who are looking at these kind of possibilities. Is it something you'd encourage them to do?

I would, but it's not for everyone. And I think you've really got to weigh up if that's something that is going to suit your personality type, because if it's not, it's a massive undertaking to make. But if it is something you think and you've toyed about, then I would, you know, go for it, but especially you've got an opportunity because they don't come around very often.

And probably in 10 years' time they'll, there really won't be very many because of the way the the market's going with corporatization. Yeah, definitely, and I think, you know, from your side of things, you know, you're obviously fiercely independent at the moment, and, and I dare say, you know, that that anticipation to potentially stay independent long into the future. Yeah, my view, at my age, I'm 30, is that the business can bring me a lot more until I retire than selling up now ever could, so I hope I'll get more from the business that way.

And you know when the time comes we'll see, isn't it? But at the moment I intend to keep it in independent for as long as I'm working there. Well, Nat, thanks so much for your time.

I really think that, you know, I dare say anybody who's listening, who's contemplating, looking at setting up a practise, you've got someone who's a wealth of knowledge here, probably, you know, how to do things, how not to do things, what to look at. Not to look at, so, I would highly recommend touching base with her, as you can see, she's really not busy at all and spends most of her time twiddling their thumbs. So that means a lot.

Thank you so much. I wish you every success with the practise. I know it's, it's really going from strength to strength and, and fingers crossed it continues to do that for you.

Thanks, Ben, I appreciate that. Thanks for joining us for today's episode of Vet Chat. If you've enjoyed listening to my dulcet scouse tones as I interview people much more intelligent than myself, then please do click follow and join us for future episodes.