Good evening everybody, and welcome to the latest in the practise management series of the webinar vet. My name is Andy Mee. I'm from Veterinary Management Consulting.

Tonight's talk is sponsored by Simply Health and MWI Animal Health, and it's my pleasure to introduce you to Goodwin Revitz, who is head veterinary officer for Simply Health Professionals and a past president of both the British Veterinary Association and the Society of practising Veterinary Surgeons. Good, over to you. Thank you.

And hi, everyone, and welcome to tonight's webinar. And, thank you very much for taking the time to join us after what, it's probably a busy day for you all. So, as Andy said, I'm Guren Rabbits, I'm head veterinary officer for Simply Health Professionals.

And tonight we're gonna look at our customers, and that's the pet owners that we serve. So, today, tonight, even we're gonna look at a number of things, and, and we'll cover them on this webinar. And with all, within all of these things that we're going to cover, we're gonna look at how our role as a veterinary professional team can best engage with our customers to allow us to do the best for their pet health and welfare.

And the optimum and easiest way for this to happen is by having a positive and equal relationship with pet owners. But how often do we stop and think about what it is they want now and in the future? Well, we often presume that fixing their animal is the need, and as long as we do this, then we've fulfilled our role.

But as we know as pet owners ourselves, while the outcome everyone wants is a fixed animal, the route to that involves being a trusted revolves having a trusted relationship built on shared values and expectations. And understandably, values and expectations are unique to each client, and they're constantly changing. So how we, work as a veterinary team to respond to these changes now and in the future is what we're gonna look at today.

So if we look at the market, it's always helpful to understand what the market is in which we operate. And while pet ownership is fairly stagnant over the last couple of years, the amount of overall spend on pets is significantly increasing, and you can see, on the slide there how what a significant increase we've had within 5 years. And the veterinary market is seen as one of positive growth with investors, and they're keen to invest in the market, particularly as in previous financial downturns, the veterinary and the pet care markets remain buoyant, and owners are definitely spending on their pets.

And the significant spend that's actually happening outside the vetting new practise, but it shows the value that pet owners have towards their pets and the commitment, that they have to pet ownership. And some of this increasing speed, this increasing spend may be due to the humanization of our pets. Much of this is actually to be applauded and has led to pets being treated as part of the family, meaning that owners will spend more to help their pets feel happy, healthy and remain active.

And we know that pet owners do indeed go to great lengths. We see that every day, within our practises, and the bond that they have and the lengths that they go to to keep their pets happy and healthy. And many, many owners, 55% of owners, wouldn't reduce spend on their cells, would reduce spend on their cells, sorry, before they reduce spend on their pets.

So the pet bond is huge. Now we know that. We know that pet owners do indeed have a great deal of love for their pets.

And humanization, as we've just said, it is a great part of this, and it has brought many benefits. And it's brought many to see their pets as a child. But the bond has a two-way mutual benefit, and there's enormous benefits that we see within research for humans, both mentally, physically and socially, through pet ownership.

And as a as a veterinary team, we're often very concentrated on the patient in front of us, and we can sometimes forget the mutual bond and benefit between pet and human, but it's a vital that we do understand this and keep recognising it to achieve compliance and buy in with any future treatment plans and preventive services. Cause treatment plans and goals may have to consider the needs and abilities of the owner and to recognise the unique relationship between owner and pet and any effect veterinary interventions may have on this. So at Simply Health, we've, we've talked to many of our customers to better understand the depth of the symbiotic relationship they have with their pets.

And as we said before, the majority of pet owners would go without, to care for their cat or dog and look after, and they'd often look after their pets health better than their own. And we, as we just talked about, there's a strong evidence of the one health benefits of ownership. With the majority of owners, as, as noted by this respondent survey, seeing health improvements that they attribute to owning a pet.

But the humanization of pets, while ongoing and the dynamics of pet ownership, have evolved into a more intimate relationship. And with some, they're often seen as pet parents, particularly in the US and to a degree in the UK there's been a move to change the status of animals in law away from being chattels. To more on a human nature.

So if owners are treating their pets just like they treat human members of the family with products and services attached to that persona, the values and experiences that are important for them is being translated to their pets. So following in the trend of human medicine, pet owners want better and more extensive pet healthcare. That's leading to more demand for technology and innovation that's focused on improving and extending the lives of pets.

And owners want to do more and more and be more and more involved in their pet's welfare and in their pet's treatment. And personalised care will be increasingly important with pet owners being equally involved and informed. So we need to look at how we personalise to each individual client and each individual pet.

But at the same time as a desire for potentially more interventions to extend life and more personalization of care, there's also a growing scepticism of conventional medicines as seen with recent stories against vaccination in pets that's mimicking that scene in human care. But there is a downside, and we know that humanization and unreal unreal expectations of pas can unfortunately translate to unintended harms. So through humanization, there can be misunderstanding of the basic welfare needs of species.

The species that mainly that we see within practise, and we see this all the time. And the PDSA poor report, which showed that only 13% of owners were able to correctly identify all of the five welfare needs, from a choice of descriptions. But the same report also says that owners who feel informed about each of the five welfare needs are more likely to provide preventive healthcare to the pets.

The owners who don't feel informed about those welfare needs. And companionship, the need for or not for companionship of an animal, seems to be the least well recognised welfare need, with some pet owners feeling that companionship was necessary, but of those that felt it was necessary, 3 in 10 chose to have human company as a need, again demonstrating the increased humanization of pets that may not be in the best interests of that pet. And in terms of veterinary practises, half of veterinary professionals say their practise promotes the concept of 5 welfare needs through r routine consultations.

And that's fantastic. If we can promote that education, that's great. But if we know that owners are in that are informed of welfare needs are more likely to engage with preventive healthcare.

Then education should be seen as important as any other part of the consultation so that we can see that 100% of practises are informing of the five welfare needs, and then it's a key component, particularly to those preventive healthcare consultations. And so, as, as we can see that owners want to be more engaged with their pet's health and are keen to turn to the internet for help, education from the trusted veterinary professional team should be a priority both now and in the future. We also know that unreal expectations can cause unintended harm, and this can unfortunately happen with obesity, with 8 in 10 owners saying their pet is an ideal weight.

Yet veterinary practises themselves saying half of dogs seen are overweight. So if 8 in 10 pet owners are saying that their pet is an ideal weight, that's not correlating with what we're seeing in practise, there's a mismatch, an unreal expectation by the owner, and it's for us as educators to improve that for pet health and welfare. And again, unreal expectations are also seen with the underestimation of the lifetime cost of a pet and the purchasing of the pet in the first place, with only 5% of pet owners seeking advice from a veterinary professional before actually purchasing their pets, and with around 25% of those not doing any research at all before they buy a pet.

And yet we as veterinary professionals within the veterinary practise team should be the trusted place that pet owners can come to make those important decisions and get all the information that they need to keep that new pet happy and healthy. And most recently, the PDSA report 2019 has shown a record drop in the number of young pets receiving their primary vaccinations. And also, the BVA surveys have shown that 98% of vets have been questioned by owners about the need for vaccinations, with most of the, most of those that are questioning vets finding their answers and their and doing their research from the internet.

So again, education has to be part of what we do. It has to be an essential part of engaging with our customers to avoid any unintended harms. So what we've seen so far leads us to know that pet owners of today are more and more concerned about their pet's health and looking for more advanced interventions with technology playing a part as we see in human medicine.

And a pet's well-being, so not just physical well-being, but mental well-being is as important to owners as anything else. But we also, well, can celebrate the humanization and the good points that that has led to, we also need to be aware of the detrimental effect this can have on both physical and mental health, mental well-being of our pets, and we need to be able to have the education and the conversations with clients to make sure that this thing doesn't happen. And preventive health problems such as obesity are a number one concern.

And yet scepticism of some interventions in parallel with that seen in human medicine again may be leading to falling vaccination rates and potential health and welfare harms later on in life. But all of this gives us massive opportunities for the veterinary team to provide evidence-based education to owners in a supportive manner. So we've got loads of knowledge about what owners are doing and why.

And much of that's thanks to work such as the PDSA report, or the stakeholders, BVA surveys. But some of the actions of owners are due to us failing to inform and include them on the wellness journey. So while we have lots of information about what, owners are doing now and want for the future, we need to turn that back towards the owners and translate it in education in an informative and supportive way.

And the future for our practises is really, vibrant for those who can grasp this. And one way of doing that is, is technology. It's a perfect way of engaging with our owners, taking the bricks and mortar relationship we have with them, and putting it into, the palm of their hand, making it accessible to them in their home.

And maybe if we can do that and we can engage with more and more pet owners, that 1 in 10 pet owner that isn't registered with a veterinary practise will become part of our veterinary family. So let's take a look at technology. The Vet Futures report, that was done in 2015 and then followed with the Vet Futures Action report and the ongoing veterinary nursing Futures report says that technology, that the veterinary profession is a scientific profession, and innovation should sit at the heart of it.

So we know the scope in being more strident about the value we attach to technology and innovation in a science-based and evidence-based way. But the question is, are, are, is the veterinary profession ready? Are vets working in practise ready and how does the veterinary team help them?

And the Futures report, and you can see there is just a concern as if we're not ready, we're really, really going to miss out, on huge advances that we can see and things that can really make a difference to animal health and welfare and to making a difference to that personalised care that owners are seeking. So what's going on at the moment? There's loads of stuff already happening, in technology, and many of you will be seeing and using some of this within practises.

Telemedicine, you may all be having conversations peer to peer. You may be having conversations with your, with your owners already. Wearables that owners can engage with, the health and welfare of their, their pets at home and share that with the veterinary regime.

And enormous technological advances that are happening in diagnostics and treatments, some already within our practises, and some still in the research stage, such as genomics. And then when we look at actually practise management and how we run our practises engage, things like online scheduling, making things accessible and easy for the clients. Same with online payments.

Online communications, and a lot of this comes around to the big data. So are we capturing the evidence of what we do all day? Are we sharing that evidence and are we using that evidence to make the veterinary profession futureproof, and aiding animal health and welfare?

So we can see that actually within the profession itself and within stakeholders, there's loads happening and a lot of investment. And the profession has been has been successfully using telemedicine for a long time, particularly peer to peer communication, general advice, determining emergencies, but it's a rapidly growing way of communicating with pet owners. And everybody who is engaged with pet owners and working in practise as a veterinary team, one thing we need to look at is the, the myriad of ways we can communicate with our customers, and offer them services, and are we using that to best advantage?

And in terms of advances in treatments and diagnostics, there's a huge amount happening. If we look at monoclonal antibodies, the first one for therapies to use in humans received marketing approval 25 years ago, and now there's 80 that have been approved with more than 50 in late stage clinical development. So that I understanding that's in the human sector, which is had huge amounts of research.

But we do follow the human sector. So if we look at this 80 in the human sector in contrast, the use of antibodies in veterinary medicine is in it in its early stages with very, very few under development, but it's a growing area. And we know, we look at genetic testing, which some of our owners may be already asking about, because we know that genes play a major part in health and inherited diseases, particularly in, prevalent in dogs, and we hear a lot about this with pedigree dogs.

And it's enormously, it has an enormous impact, in welfare, and the most talked about is around, dog welfare. So if we take dogs, if we look at people trying to understand the genetics of dogs, and that's of interest to many of our stakeholders in practise, many of our clients, many of our customers, many of the people that we interact with. So owners, vets, researchers, breeders, but it's a massively complex area.

It's a complex area for our owners, vets, research breeders, it's a complex area for us as a team. And pet owners are wanting more and more to undertake DNA testing to look at parentage. Breed ancestry, as well as looking at health risks.

And it might just be for interest, or it might be for diagnostic information. But and they are turning to us as a veterinary professional team to seek advice. But there's a lot of these tests aren't regulated or or validated, and many have come out of research on human disease.

So the risk, the actual risk indicated by a test or or or or and or the relevance of the overall health of the dog is unclear. And it's important that as a veterinary practise team, we understand this so that we can help inform clients. So we need to be ahead of what is happening.

We need to be informed of what is happening so that when our clients come in, we can help them. And there's great, resources out there. So in terms of, understanding the genetics, and, and, working to get these tests validated so that our pet owners can rely on them.

The, there's people like the International Partnership for Dogs, harm and ization of genetic testing for dogs has been formed and that grew out of international collaborative efforts and to address the issues that we talked around about how a consumer can recognise good quality tests from a from a poor one. How does an owner or breeder make an informed decision? How can this be done keeping a whole, the whole picture and view on health and welfare?

And how can vets keep up with all the new developments? So there are good things out there, that are done by the profession for the profession to help the veterinary team, but also to help our pet owners, our customers, our clients to navigate this new way. And it's important that practises can embrace this because our clients are already embracing it and are going to be coming looking to us to help them.

And, and the industry itself is one step ahead, and you can see from those slides, there's significant funding becoming available for, for new technology, and, and innovation, in pet care, and the veterinary profession is involved in it. But as a veterinary veterinary, practise team, we need to feel able to understand it and therefore sharing it and be a part of it with, with our customers. And, and as we briefly mentioned before, let's not forget the power of data.

So Banfield is predominantly in the US. They have, bought, they have bought, well, Mars that owns Banfield has bought with within the UK. But Bamfield, has an enormous amount of practises.

They've got over 1000 practises. And one of the, the big things they have is data because they just see so many cats and dogs within a year that they can, they can pull off that data and make real evidence-based advances with it. Because data has power, as we just said, it develops evidence-based veterinary medicine, but one thing that is important as practitioners in independent practises or within corporate practises, and as a profession together.

It, what is important is that we collaborate where possible, so that we enable good data collection, good data sharing, and we help provide the resources for research that can be done. And in the UK we can really help out all of our practises can help by taking part in, and by joining in and collaborating with networks such as, SASET and VEC Compass. So what else is out there that we know is on the increase, and that we're starting to see within our practises.

And that's wearable tech. We're, we're so used to work for wearable technology, in our own lives. We all, well, a lot of us wear Fitbits or smartwatches.

We have, technology within our home that might not be wearable, but it's, it's within our lives. And the availability and accessibility of wearable technology, while exploding in the human market, it's growing. There's a real growing interest, amongst pet owners.

And it may, the the wearable technology for pets may allow owners to become more aware of their pets safety, their pet's activity, their lifestyles, their health, and this can all help them to make more informed decisions about their pet's wellbeing. And it can also help build an evidence base for that individual pet, so that we can start to identify when differences are occurring in their day to day habits and lifestyle that may indicate disease or may indicate a problem, and it will start to indicate problems very early on. Because it collects that everyday data.

And by doing that, that may lead us towards helping with personalised treatments, again, through big data analysis. But as we've talked about with, with other tests, the, the benefit from these can only happen if the data is usable. And if the data is shared with the veterinary team, and then it can be translated and added to parts of the pet's medical records.

Because fundamentally, that could help both the practise, the practise team, and it can help the pet owner, . But it needs to be, it needs to be a two-way process. And we also need to have the evidence, and look at the outcomes from the wearable technology that is out there to make sure that it is doing what we hope it can do.

But again, it's important that as a veterinary team, we're knowledgeable about it, because then we can help to find the evidence, to see what the outcomes are and to see if it is gonna work. But we can't bury our head in the sands on these because our, our clients and our patients are our pet owners are coming to look for us. So technology is a growing market, and while we're not here to cover all of technology, I think it is important that we look what is out there, and we stay ahead, so that we can guide our, our pet owners through, what is going to be a booming market in the, in the technological advances and innovations for pet care.

And the other thing that we need to look for in the future is our brand. It's kind of brand vet. What people look for in brand is massively changing.

So at the moment, we know that people are looking towards brands that are purpose driven. Now, that may seem obvious, in that, because we're a vet new practise. So surely that means we're showing we care for animals.

But actually, what does your practise really say? What does your brand really look like if you saw it through the eyes of your customer? If you walked outside your practise and you walked through, through the driveway, you walked through the door, you walked around the practise as a customer, as a client, as a pet owner, what would it say to you?

Are your values obvious to the pet owners? And does it convey, does your practise, does your vision, does your brand convey what your vision, what your mission is for your practise? And customers can easily see through greenwashing, so they can see something that isn't isn't heartfelt.

So a true purpose driven business, will have fundamentally changed its DNA of the business, and it won't look like a traditional business. So what I would say is do look and feel like every other practise, or does your brand, just what you stand for, shine through to the customer. And we need to think about this because that is what is going to differentiate us, in the future.

And more and more, customers do want to buy into brands that care. And it's not just our customers that want to buy into brands that care, and particularly looking at sustainability. It's often our employees are looking for workplaces.

So our team members, the people that we line manage, the people that we work for, the new person that we look, we may want to look to employ, they're looking for workplaces where corporate social responsibility is a real and genuine part of the culture. And it, and it mirrors what they believe in, it mirrors their agenda in terms of the great good. So sustainability is is the big topic at the moment, and it is a concern for many pet owners, and it is a concern for many employees.

And as a practise, if we can help pet owners owners understand their impact on the environment, as well as making evidence-based choices on how to improve that, we can differentiate ourselves from the customers. And we're seeing that more and more, with pet foods, with pet owners looking for sustainable brands, looking for brands that, That look for the that have high ethics and welfare for the the meat that they're using. So we're looking, so pet owners are looking to differentiate.

And if we can't provide that source of information for them, they will look outside of our practise team. And actually, we want to be that source of evidence, and we want to, increase that loyalty that they have to the practise. And the, the profession is doing it.

The profession is massively championing this. And so is the media. So now is a great time to look actually, at your practise, at your sustainability footprint, green initiatives you can do that you can engage, your pet owners with, that you can engage your employees with.

And there really is a lot of help out there. And so what are the other trends that are happening out there that can help us to know how to engage with our pet owners now and and our pet owners in the future? And one of them is how well do you know each segment of your pet owner, because they, they are different.

If we look at 30% of millennial pet owners say they like their pet to keep up with the latest trends. So clothes, grooming styles, and humanization again. Which compared to an average of 19% in in non-millennials.

Now, if we can understand these kind of trends, that helps us to understand how we, how better to engage with different types of customers, how better to showcase our practise. Again, with millennials, 40% would spend just as much money on their pet at special events, as they would on a friend. And again, it's showing that bond that all generations have with their pet, but it's a different way of expressing it.

And 38% of millennial pet food buyers, say they're interested in buying human style food, pet food compared to 29% of, of, of all pet food buyers. And again, you know, we've just talked about pet food, but these are people who are looking to differentiate, how they treat their animal, and they're looking for things that match the humanization, that they feel for their pet. And it, and it's right that we as practises can help them navigate that and can supply the things that they want, so that we know we're doing the best for, for pet health and welfare, and we know that it is evidence based.

So becoming aware of specific generations, the, the motivators for specific generations and their drivers. Can really help to understand a pet owner better and help to provide the services that will build the best relationship with them. And that ultimately pays dividends, particularly for the pet's health and welfare, because it's increasing that loyalty with the practise.

So we know that the information they are getting is evidence-based, science driven, and it's from from the veterinary team. So, one thing that we do think will will continue to happen in the future, is that actually we will be a very trusted, we'll be a trusted profession, the veterinary practise will be a trusted place. So consumer trust in public bodies and, and the business sector has declined massively over the last 10 years, but not, not for the veterinary profession, not for our veterinary practises.

. And maintaining this trust, is ultimately, will encourage the loyalty of our pet owners and repeat business, for the future. And this trust is, is all the things we've been talking about. It's about understanding our customers.

It's about providing, an evidence base, for them, and providing the things that they want, in a, in, and, and that's the way that we, we continue to have the trust that we enjoy. But more work is needed in relation to public perceptions of value for money, because values only ever been rated at around 70%. So they're trusting us to fix their pets, but they're not always valuing the money that they may have spent at the end of the day.

And again, some of that can come down to education. So are we commute. Communicating with our clients and well pet owners, exactly the value that has come.

Can they walk the journey that their pet has been through? Can they identify all the individual jobs that the veterinary team has done for that pet in the day, and how specialised that veterinary team is to see the value, that they are getting from the veterinary team, because trust is, is certainly something they hold in high esteem. And then looking what are other trends that we're starting to see in in other areas that we may see translated into the, into the, into veterinary.

So in human health, there's a growing trend towards incentive-based health insurance. And this is, is where you offer an upfront incentive combined with rolling incentives, almost, that is aimed at encouraging health. So, for instance, an Apple Watch is offered and remains free, providing members hit monthly health targets in the human insurance market.

Or Amazon Prime is offered for free and one that members hit other health targets, to incentivize them to stay healthy. So there's a win-win really for the insurance companies, but also for the human. And so there's a question, I suppose, as to whether incentive-based insurance or care will ultimately trickle into the pet care market.

It could reward owners who keep their pets fit, who meet wellbeing needs. For example, in areas such as training, weight, socialisation, it may provide incentives such as free trackers or, or reduced premiums in exactly the same way that reduced premiums have been seen for young drivers, if they use particular way, particular black box, things that that insurance companies can track how well they're driving. So I suppose the interesting part for the veterinary practise in all of this is, is how can we take this culture and use it to praise and reward owners to make them feel part of the veterinary family and to encourage loyalty with the practise and encourage really good health and welfare and, and to engage with the health messages that our whole veterinary practise team can do.

And to a great degree, we already do this, particularly when we run campaigns, such as Pet Slimmer Award, where we celebrate, an owner's commitment with their pets, perhaps to to something like pet slimming. But are there other ways that we can really, reward owners, and incentivize them to join in with the health messages, of the practise? And, you know, certainly look into the future, there's a, I think we need to be aware the owners are going to look for, for new products and services.

And as a, as a veterinary practise in a way, we, we need to keep innovating, and we need to keep offering different things. Practise, while always maintaining that evidence-based approach. So doing things that are the right thing for the animals' health and welfare.

And that can be things just like new education packages or or other ways of engaging and engaging our pet owners. Because, otherwise, I think we are gonna see products that tap into that, that humanization, the human emotion, emotional bond with their pet that, that is, is driving us towards more and more humanization, some of which we know is good, some of which, unfortunately, can have those unintended calms. So, you know, we're starting to see, Demand for gifts, you know, you can buy Prosecco out there, a wine for cats and dogs.

And there's, there's now a beauty mark out market out there with colour enhancing shampoos and And some of these actually, can, mask, a pet's normal behaviours and actually can have real detrimental harms. But the, it's the unintended harm that the, the pet owner is not, certainly not intending at all. But they're looking for ways, of rewarding their pet, of, of humanising their pet, and they're looking for products and services to show their love of the pet.

And we need to make sure, that as a veterinary, veterinary professional team. That we are always there to to innovate, to offer new products and services. There are evidence based and make sure that owners are aware of how to show appropriate affection and an emotional bond to their pet to their pets as we start to see more products and services potentially coming to the market for pets.

So, I think, I think, yeah, I think it absolutely is the case that . Pet owners do want to come to us. We are seen as experts, we are seen as trusted professionals, and we need to keep engaging and allowing owners novel ways of engaging with us.

Cause we know that the trust is there, but on the flip side, there's also a growing scepticism of some veterinary care which we've seen with an anti-vaccination movement. So we need to look at how we get that advice out there in a trusted way that speaks to speaks to the pet owner, so that they're not going onto the internet to find the information they're coming to us. So again, as I said before, at Simply Health, we recently run, pet owner focus groups and asks where they go for their advice.

And of course, vets are in there. You can see that they're going to their vets, for advice. And that's great.

And again, if you look in there, the vets are seen as the trusted, the trusted source of advice. But they're not seen as quickly accessible, as you can see there, it says, might not be able to get an appointment, or what if they charge me, I just need a bit of advice. So we've got a little bit of work to do to overcome that feeling.

We've got a bit of a work to do to make sure that owners feel that, that we are accessible, that we are there for the questions, that we are there for the advice. Even when actually we don't need to see them. But we've also got some, some work to do on conveying value, so the owners do see the monetary value, of the advice that we can, that we can give, even if that is out with, a consultation.

So, again, this is from the, some of the work that we did with our with our pet owners. You can see that from everything that they're saying, the relationship with the veterinary team is key. And we absolutely make sure that that we need to make sure that that is, continued with the pet owner when they're not in our practise, when they're not talking to the veterinary team, that when they're not, actually physically present.

So making sure we continue that relationship, the bricks and mortar relationship, the relationship we have when they come in, that we take that and we continue it in the palm of their hand when the owner leaves our practise. And we mustn't shy away from, From being able to communicate our value better, we just need to find good ways of doing that. So the other thing that came out as, as key, as really important to, to many of the people that we spoke to through our focus groups, was this end of life care.

And I think we're all very aware of this, you know, it's a very difficult time for everybody. But I think this is something that we really, really do need to focus on, and both for today's pet owners, but, but for the future as well. .

And of course it's no surprise, it's an immensely difficult time and it's a very upsetting time, . And certainly, you know, while veterinary teams carry, carry out, end of life care, with compassion, and they carry out with empathy every single day, and it's the whole team that are often involved in this. It might, it might just be worth stopping and reviewing, our procedures in practise to make sure that we, we really are doing everything we can for the pet owner at this time.

And that we're doing everything for the pet owner, when they've left the practise as well. Because owners are looking, to, to minimise the discomfort. They're looking to be prepared for this.

They know it's going to hurt. They know it's going to be difficult, but is there ways they can prepare for it? They want to say a proper goodbye in an environment with people who understand their loss.

So that's, that's part of being a trusted veterinary team. And can we be sure that this happens all the time? And are we using all of our veterinary team appropriately to offer the pet owner the best support?

And ultimately, this is good for everybody, because it's a difficult time both for the, for, for all of the practise, but all those are also the pet owner. And it helps for future loyalty with that pet owner and helps them to enjoy, pets, more in the future as well, and to be able to come back to the practise, without having that sense of grief. So pet owners have raised lots of questions about how to cope with end of life care, and it may be worth just using these kind of questions as a as a checklist of things that we might not have thought owners would, would, be thinking about.

It it might be something that actually is a, a price. Is we can provide the answers for. Because if we can guide our pet owners through the stages of of end of life, that, that's a real comfort for them, and that needs to start before end of life is close, so that we can help to answer the concerns that that some of them have lifted, listed there.

And some of these we may not have anticipated. But if we can be open and transparent with clients in the empathetic way that our veterinary teams can be, it can be a huge help. And again, it's about how we engage and communicate with clients and how we utilise the technology and the communication methods that are available now, but are becoming more and more available to us in the future.

So we've got loads and loads of opportunities, now and in the future to, to both understand the pet owner of today and to start to, to understand the pet owner of the future so that we have thriving, and sustainable practises. And we really are making huge strides within for pet owners in maintaining, their pet health and welfare. One of the biggest things I think we talked about is the veterinary team as educators.

Are we really making the most of the whole of our team, as the educators, as the evidence-based source of education for pet owners? And are we communicating that education in a way that is accessible to clients, and, and in a way that is convenient and available to them? Client convenience is huge.

Everybody has time pressures and the client client convenience is the new loyalty. So are we there, are we as convenient as we can be? And that's not necessarily, we have to have our doors open, but are we there with the information and the education that they need and want.

And that comes to the the bricks and mortar to the palm of the hand. Are we embracing the technologies that our pet owners are using every day, that we're using every day? And then if we look at evidence-based medicine and where that's going, it's going to the personalised medicine.

So are we treating each of our pet owners and their pets as unique? Are we having the conversations that makes them feel that we understand the needs of them and their pets? And a lot of these conversations, we need to look at enhanced communications from the team.

We need to look at technologies and, and ways of communicating, because that needs to grow. And also as a, as a, as a practise team, it's about embracing new technologies. We can't know everything about what's happening, and nobody can, but we need to be able to be aware that these technologies are being seen by our pet owners.

They're being viewed by our pet owners, and they're going to come in to us with questions. So it's important that we, we sort of don't bury our head in the sand. But we actually embrace it.

So I think we've got, it, it's a really exciting time to be part of the veterinary team. And I think we've got a really exciting future for providing evidence-based, messages and education and really helping pet health and welfare at now and in the future. So thank you very much, for listening.

I don't know if we're, we're having any questions now. Yes, so just to remind everybody, thank you very much for that good one, really, really, interesting talk there. Just to remind everybody, we've got the Q&A box you can type into, or there's also the, the chat box.

It's interesting, both you and I were at the, RCVS Innovation symposium today in Manchester, good run, and some of the, future developments really look, you know, amazing. I, I, I was blown away by some of the, technologies, particularly like the, what was it, the nanopore one where it looks like in, in the future, we'll be able to just take a urine sample, run it through a tube, and we'll be able to tell what bacteria are in there and that kind of thing. You know, certainly I would recommend everybody keeps an eye out for updates from the Royal College on their innovation initiatives, but I just wondered if, if you would like to further comment on, you know, what, yeah, absolutely, I think, what was really fascinating was both the scope of what can be done, and how quickly and, and how easily things can be done.

Now, a lot of these tests are going to become available to the practise teams. They're going to become affordable to practise teams. And I think what was interesting is, is how we prepare for that, how we prepare, and we, we have the best education and knowledge that we can have, and how we prepare our pet owners and their expectations for that as well.

So I, I would agree with you. I think it's important that we all embrace it, and we, we actually need to understand it first, and then help our, our, our pet owners navigate it. But I think, you know, as we saw today, what was something that was really interesting that came out was, they were looking at, at, at some of this stuff and.

And they were able to identify a shark just by you know, looking at the running the water sample. Yeah. And, and the gentleman said, you know, the, the speaker, and I forget his name, he actually said, but you could do it faster if you just took a look at the shark.

And, and that was an interesting message, because we are going to have huge amounts of technology and innovation, and this is gonna bring some fantastic things. But actually, we are people, people, and, and ultimately, it's that relationship and, and that animal that is in front of us, and we must never forget, you know, the basics of what we're there to do and what we can do. Absolutely, yeah.

I think the other thing that struck me today as well was, the data on, you, you've talked about this evening about how, people are humanising their pets and how they'll spend money and what have you, but, but the later generation, the Z generation are even more prepared to do it, aren't they, than, than the millennials and stuff that you talked about. Yes, yeah, in terms of, in terms of spend, absolutely. I know, and I think the first slide that I showed is there's an awful lot of spend out there, and that doesn't change in economic downtime.

but there's an awful lot of spend that is away from the veterinary practise, actually, on things that we are knowledgeable about, and that's where the loyalty and the education comes back in, to make sure that that spend comes back into the, into our practises. Yeah, but also on that note, I mean, you, you touched on it around educating owners. It, it, it never ceases to amaze me that people are prepared to spend 20 or 30 pounds.

To have their animal groomed every month, but they see preventative healthcare at whatever similar price as, as not being a priority. And. Yes, and, and, and a little bit the same, you know, some of those things are, I think, because with grooming, it's, it's staring you in the face.

The dog looks a little bit matted, or the cat looks a little bit matted, you can physically see it. And actually with preventive healthcare, but. We can't see that.

We can't see the good it's doing. We can't visualise what happens if we don't do it until the worst case scenario. And sometimes we have to, we have to get behind of why clients might not be engaging with it.

So, and that can help us with how we, we perhaps use props, how we can actually educate people to show them the importance of what we're doing. Yeah, absolutely. Right, there are no further questions come through, so I think you must have covered, everybody's questions in the talk.

So that's good. So again, thank you very much, good one. That was really entertaining and just, again to thank our sponsors, Simply Health and MWI Animal Health, and I look forward to seeing everybody.

I'm not seeing obviously, but speaking to everybody again on the next, practise management webinar. Thanks again. Thank you.

Good night. Thanks. Good night.