Hello. It's Anthony Chadwick from the Webinar Vet. Welcome to another episode of Vet Chat.

The number one veterinary podcast. And I'm very, very pleased to introduce everyone to Mark Leddy, who is a veterinary surgeon hailing and qualifying from the great city of Liverpool. Just shortly after me, actually which we we realised, and a LinkedIn friend.

I think we started to sort of communicate via LinkedIn because Mark is in the interesting situation of being a vet, but was actually helping to run a GP practise. So we got chatting. We realised we we shared interests in where we went to university, but also around environmental issues.

But, yeah, Mark, welcome to the Webinar. And, great to have you on. Yeah, lovely to see you.

And, yeah, it was a very interesting conversation we had late one evening. I recall I. I think you were trying to get a train to a B VA meeting, and I think I was trying to do my online shopping.

And we accidentally started talking about storage batteries, and I think about an hour and a half went by. Yes, it was all very interesting and yeah, It's great to see today. My, battery has not always been getting full up over April and and obviously earlier than that because it was dark.

It's been a It's been a funny old month. Liverpool probably gets less sun than Oxford, so I imagine your batteries and your solar panels are doing a bit better. Yeah, we've done a little bit better.

We do use a lot of power, though, cos we we we are fairly decarbonised. Let's say so. We do use quite a lot of power, so we do have to charge overnight as well as as well as from the roof.

But, yeah, it's not been the best. Has it with all this cloud. Yeah, And the decarbonisation thing is interesting because we had our kitchen, redesign.

That's another story that could be a webinar and a podcast on its own. You know, the the 1 to 10 day thing that turned out to be a month. And actually, if you've got one important room in the house, it probably is the kitchen, isn't it?

You know you can You can do a lot without a bathroom. You know, you may be fortunate enough to have another bathroom, a living room, et cetera, even a bedroom. There's usually another bedroom you can go into, or you can sleep on a couch.

But not having a, a kitchen for a month is a bit of a struggle. So we actually, as part of that, went and decided to get a an oven and a cooker. That was an induction hob.

So we've obviously again started to try and get out of, gas and more into electricity. Obviously, we get our electricity from good energy, which is 100% sustainable energy and then having your own solar panels, which I've had for about well, thermal about 16 years and and PV for over 10. I think a battery in last year.

It's It all helps to, politely and gently stick two fingers up to the greedy energy companies. Although I noticed they are now starting to sell solar panels. Yes, yes, indeed.

We were talking actually the other day about antibiotic reduction and about how, in the very early days there was the first company. I can't remember which company it was that actually started promoting the use of less electricity. We were saying about how you know there's a There's an evolution there with antibiotics as well.

Wasn't it the same thing about the idea that suddenly you have pharmaceutical companies recommending you weren't going to use an antibiotic or you're gonna use less? And it is interesting how how ethics has now played a much bigger role. I think in the way people choose things and the way corporations have to run.

It's a really, it's a really good pressure, I think, to improve a lot of things. Yeah, and we definitely do need to decarbonise. I think it's going to be a long time before we can probably completely get rid of oil.

But opening new oil wells. I have a friend who's an oil man retired now, but I think we do have a job. Maybe our role is to show an example of we could do this, but we've decided not to.

So I do hope that that is a decision that we maybe can think about, going against at some point because it does seem AAA crazy. A crazy one. Yeah, absolutely.

And I think from from sort of our perspective, we've, you know, we've looked at a number of things. There's a lot more things we can do. And originally I was thinking, Oh, you know, there's no way we can because of our lifestyle or whatever that we can we can really decarbonise And then I think you change your mindset changes after a while and you think, Well, why don't I just do the easiest things first or why don't do the things that are possible And suddenly when I had that attitude, then suddenly we were able to do a lot more and and that that has helped a lot, you know, rather than saying Well, you know, it's evil to use any oil.

I think you have to be quite realistic and just go through what you can change and what you can afford to do. Yeah, and I think that's that's the problem. I saw a survey 89% of vets and nurses from the BB A, you know, are interested in sustainability.

But then part of the issue is they're not sure what the next step is, and so therefore they don't do anything. And, of course, the journey of 1000 miles starts with 1000 step with the first step A and obviously you take the easy things first. So there's always things you can do.

But if you think, Oh, it doesn't matter or it doesn't make a difference or I'm not gonna make a difference, then it can sort of paralyse you into doing nothing, can't it? Hm? Oh, absolutely.

I think also as well. Because of the way that vetting practise is set up and any medical operation is set up, you have the issue that there are other factors which are very, very important. You know, sterility, single use, disease control, cross contamination.

All of these things, you know, they they will, they will I I impact. And I think they make it a particularly difficult industry in which to actually do anything. And I think that's where people do get quite demoralised.

But But I think it's nice now. I mean, we talk. We don't whether we get on the topic of corporatization and I, I don't sit in either camp on that one, particularly, but it is interesting to see how they have to take an interest in all of that.

Now you know it has to be part of their their report to shareholders and so on. So I think it it's It's an area where the there will be more and more to be done. And I think they will start also to push, encourage, maybe combination of both a lot of the suppliers to actually start thinking about what they can do.

Rather than you know, rather than, just think. Oh, it's it's impossible. Let's not worry about it.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting we've started, the last two years doing the Veterinary Green Discussion Forum at a nature reserve, and it's been really heartening to see how certainly a segment of the profession has really embraced that and and seen it as, yes, we need to move forward. A lot of companies are afraid of being accused of greenwashing, so they therefore say we won't say anything, whereas I'm actually of the opinion that with, you know, all the bad news that's about II. I kind of then think we're a bit duty bound to tell good news stories to actually cheer each other up, and I think there is a lot of good things going on.

They may be a little bit, fragmented, whereas hopefully by bringing people together at the Veterinary Green Discussion Forum, people realise that they're not on their own, that there are people who are interested in this and that we can actually make a difference. And it's it's been really heartening. It was a not for profit conference and off the back of the first two years, we've been made to raise some money for Lancashire Wildlife Trust, which has helped them to, RIL 30 hectares of exhausted livery land that they, you know, perhaps wouldn't have been able to do without it.

So it's nice to see something really practical happening because we can all talk about the environment and we can all talk about how terrible it is to have plastic in the oceans and the temperatures are going up. But actually, as people have hoped, it's important that we just do something about it and the small things we can do, you know, do matter. Because if we all do a bit, it adds up to a lot.

Yeah, yeah, I agree with that one. I think the other part for me as well is that, we we we we mustn't underplay the ability of technology and the speed at which technology can help us. An example I was looking at was the idea of, people like Axl and and the the you know, the idea that you, you know, you everybody who's got a little bit of battery storage can give back at the right moment to be able to stop a gas fired or a coal fired power station being being, being started.

You know, when you start to look at that, there are opportunities that are out there, and I think there are technologies that will, you know, will change things very rapidly. I mean, the other day, I noticed, for example, I. I came home early from something.

I plugged my car and it was two o'clock in the afternoon and Octopus decided to charge my car for an hour because they the the grid was especially green. And they wanted to use power up. You know, things like that I think are really clever.

And they're really useful. And and we will see, you know, we will see more and more things like that. I think the challenge at the moment is the technology itself is still fragmented.

And I think we're also seeing, you know, issues of understand. I mean, I. I can't work out.

For example. You know, when I should be using my battery power versus when I should be using solar power. And when do I actually put the washing machine on?

There must be somebody who's a lot better at mathematical modelling than me that's gonna be able to crack that one. And I'm gonna be able to just push one button a bit like an S thermostat. You know, I don't have one, but you you just press one button and it works it all out.

I think we're on the verge of quite a big change there, and I think that will also hopefully make people more willing to take the leap and also be able to understand more accurately before they start what it might cost them. So that's the other thing, isn't it? You know, the upfront cost of some of these things is is a lot, and it doesn't necessarily have to be that way we can.

We could finance it in different routes. So, yeah, a lot going on in that space, I think certainly help in the subsidising that they are doing in other areas encouraging a green revolution. You know, every new house should have solar panels on if they if it's if they're suitable and you know they're positioned in the right way to take that solar, then we should definitely do that.

I think technology as well as being a great plus, you know, can also be a negative. Because, of course, we're in a situation now where, I think it was the Netherlands government refused me a, access to the country to build a data centre because they said you're actually using too much energy and it's gonna it's gonna compromise the, you know, the national supply to to ordinary people. And and that's and it's something I've heard about at Sustainability live in March in London.

In within the next few years, 30% of Irish electricity is going to data centres, and I presume there's a similar number, you know, with places like the Netherlands, and and a lot of that is with emails that nobody ever looks at, or things that are stored like photographs on, you know, iCloud and so on. So I'm looking very much at how we can as a profession, I'm sure, as a collective, we could save an enormous amount of energy by just using technology a bit less or or, you know, deleting emails or not sending an email in the first place, which sounds a bit countercultural for a digital company to talk about. But I think we have a responsibility, you know, in that area as well.

Yeah, I think it's another area, isn't it? I. I was doing a course on artificial intelligence, and I'm sure you've had people on this podcast who are much better at understanding all that tech than I am.

But one of the things I took home was actually building the large language models that are being built now take a tremendous amount of processing power over a tremendous amount. You know, an awful lot of energy in it. There is a big argument there at the moment unless things change, but that is also going to be a consumer of a a lot of power, and amongst all the other ethical dilemmas of a I.

It's another one, Isn't it to decide? OK, are we comfortable that big tech companies that have a lot of money can put, you know, a huge amount of energy requirement to be able to do all these things? We all love the output of all these things, don't we like we all like the thing that things that reusable plastic will do for us.

But we, you know, or whatever, but we we do have a we don't think about necessarily what the end result will be. Yeah, And I think the, the artificial intelligence is a really good example of there are obviously some very good things that come of it. But you have to consider those, and sometimes you get surprised.

You know, we all wanted to go paperless, but by going paperless, have we then encouraged ourselves to put more and more stuff that we don't need to keep on? You know, data centres and on on servers and so on. So it's a It's an area that I think, a As you get more and more into this environmental issue, you realise that nothing is black and white.

There's a lot of grey and and actually the more you get into it the the the more you realise that the less you know Hm, Absolutely. But, you know, we we can look at things like, electric cars and say, Yeah, they do use a lot of carbon in their construction. Yes, the batteries are problematic.

But if we if we went and really encouraged the green revolution of of, you know, really embracing solar, for example, then that has to save energy that that, you know, that gives us more energy. I think one of the other issues is, we seem to be going up about 1% a year in our energy usage so that we have to decouple that and start using less energy. Because otherwise the solar just becomes what helps to power the A I.

But we still need to be oil because we've got to do the other stuff as well. So it's, it's complex. It's philosophical conversations, but interesting.

Nevertheless, Yeah, there are lots of challenges, and I think you know, I think I think one of the best phrases I heard about it, somebody said. Well, what's best for now? What's the best option now?

And I think that's it's probably any way you can actually make step forward, isn't it? Rather than saying, Well, I won't move cos I can't get it perfect. What's the best option now?

I mean, I have We have one electric car, we have two vehicles, one's electric. And you know, some of our friends have said to us Well, they're not very environmentally friendly. Same old arguments come out like, Well, it's the best we can do for now.

And at least we know we're helping local pollution. We hope we're hoping we we're we're helping our carbon footprint. But we know that if I drive past the school, which I do every day, I know that at least that's something I am doing.

Those Children are breathing healthier air than they would do if I was going past in my diesel cars that you know. So there are tangible benefits, even if everything isn't perfect. Yeah, and 90% of the time a car spends at home, so maybe we can do more on on the sharing economy.

So there's there's lots of interesting areas you know to look at as well, aren't there absolutely, Absolutely. Are you currently looking for a new role? Or maybe you're thinking about lo comming but don't know where to start.

Contact simply vets. We are a sister company to the Webinar vet. We offer a tailored recruitment guidance to help you secure a dream permanent role.

And we run locums payroll too, which is free for the locums to use visit. Simply vets.com to find out how we can help so that obviously we we both share an interest in sustainability.

Obviously, while we were chatting on LinkedIn, but, that research and qualifying in the in the early nineties I was actually 1990. So we were there roughly at the same time. But I don't think we got to know each other when we were at university.

What? What sort of happened post graduation and And what, weird and wonderful path of you led to to be running, a GP practise. Well, it has been an interesting one.

So, I qualified. I was one of those people, you know, The sort aged 11. Met met cows on the farm.

Thought I'll be a vet that'll be fine. Never got talked out of it. Everyone told me it was impossible.

It was too hard to get into whatever managed to do all of that. And then I did the very classical thing. II.

I actually went into very small mixed practises. So my very first job was me and my boss and it sounds terrifying now, But four months after I was qualified and started working for him, he went on holiday for two weeks and he said to me, Oh, don't worry. I've booked a locum, but yet he booked a locum for the second week.

So I spent one week as a four month qualified graduate. You know, running the practise anyway. Long story short, I learned a lot in that time.

But after about six years, myself and my then wife realised that life was, pretty much a series of post it notes on the on the kitchen cupboard, and we weren't really seeing each other. She was a junior doctor. I was doing the the vet thing, you know, doing one in two rota, one in three Rota.

Whatever. And so I was like, OK, we'll try something else. And I saw an advert for a veterinary advisor job with a local pharmaceutical company, and I thought, and I'd met a Hills rep who was a vet who drove a really nice car.

And I thought, That seems like quite a good job. He drives a nice car. He turns up in the evening, he buys the food, he does the talk, and he goes anyway.

So cutting a long story short accidentally fell into the vet pharmaceutical industry through that and then, after about two years of hassling the marketing department because I would have to proofread their output and and make sure it was OK. From a technical point of view, I used to come in and go, Yeah, technically, it's correct. But as a vet, by God, that's boring.

And actually, you know, I'd be interested in this bit or that bit, so they, they rather foolishly gave me a product portfolio, made me a product manager, and I worked as a product manager. Then I worked as a marketing team leader. Then I ended up as marketing director for UK and Ireland for for, for the company, and I absolutely love that and then I probably worked there about 1213 years, and the only thing I realised was that I was a vet.

I'd been qualified by that point. What, you know, good, good number of years into the teens? Certainly.

But I had no formal business qualifications. So I initially looked at the idea of doing an MB a part time or whatever. And I had a very supportive boss who then, unfortunately left the company while I was still deciding whether I wanted to go down the MB.

A route had a new boss who thought MBAS were pretty pointless, had a discussion with him, and it didn't go anywhere. So about six months later, I put my car keys back on the desk and, and I I left and spent a year at Warwick University doing an MB a full time. And that was absolutely fascinating because that that opened my eyes to so many things, for example, the fact that that actually many of the problems that we have within the veterinary industry are absolutely not unique to the veterinary industry.

And until that moment, I thought, you know, certain things were very specific and they're not. And suddenly I'm talking to you know, somebody who's a who's a an electronics engineer, specialist from India, who's also on the course, who's explaining how he solved the problem. I'm thinking, Damn, why didn't we do that?

Why didn't we have that idea? So that got me much more interested in the world of networking and about the fact that there was a lot more out there and he did a lot of stuff on the social sciences, a lot of stuff on behaviour and started to realise what a huge impact behaviour you would have. And and I I went from that point I, I start off a veterinary I got really interested in.

Why do people buy things or more particularly, why do people make decisions? You know, how do people make decisions? Cos I think as a vet in a consulting room, we are actually spending an awful lot of time guiding people to make decisions.

We're guiding our clients to make decisions and decide what to do and how we put that is of critical importance not only as to what is the final decision they make, but also about how do they feel about that decision? I'll give you a very topical example if I may, and go off piste a little bit. The competition markets authority, are obviously they're diving in.

And and there's been a lot of questions about how have we got to this stage and and the idea now about how gold standard treatment has become overplayed and and how we, you know, contextual based care, which I think is going to be talked about more and more and more over the next few years. How much more important that will be? back onto my career.

I I at some point. Well, I'll talk about when I worked in 24 hour, emergency critical care because that that was that was really showed up at that point because what you start to realise is if you make an if an owner cannot afford the gold standard treatment, it's really important to make them comfortable about the decision they have made for their pet. And and I think that there's, you know, there's gonna be a big change there.

So anyway, long story short got really interested in behaviour and everything else and I led a number of teams in a number of different commercial situations, and I got more and more interested in leadership. So when I left, I took a job, as clinic director of a big 24 hour, veterinary clinic, and and applied a lot of the operations management stuff and so on. But my heart really wasn't there.

My heart was still within the commercial side of things a little bit more. So I then went to work with the veterinary antic company and then finally, also then helped set up a subsidiary up for, the Dave Farmer Group in the UK as well. And I ran their subsidiary for a number of years.

And after the start up of all that was done and everything was reorganised I I left. And and that's how the idea came that I would help create a private human GP practise, which, of course, is slightly bizarre thing for a vet to do. But my wife's a GP and we we had this idea that we would do that and actually, as much as it was only ever going to be a temporary position for me just for six months or a year just to see set things up and then hopefully hand them over.

Actually, it's been really interesting to look at that contrast between what happens in human private medicine, particularly primary care versus veterinary and and how some of the challenges are completely the same. But some of them are also there's other things which are very, very different, and I think the most important one is that with the human side, particularly in primary care, you've always got the fall back of the NHS. So you're not obliged, for example, to treat an A you know, not obliged to treat a patient.

You can just send them back into into the NHS primary care, whereas, of course, with vets. And I think increasingly now with the the the complications of practise ownership, it's really hard to be able to comply with the Royal College Guide, keep your keep your practise owners happy and also do the right thing for the pet and it it's not really that surprising. We've got so many issues with mental health and stress and so forth because you're trained to do one thing and then you arrive in an environment which is very different to the environment that would allow you to do what you hope would be your primary purpose.

So So, yeah, So my journey has been very, very different, and it's just about to take a another little turn. I think in the next couple of weeks, when I'm I'm going to pop up somewhere else in the in the veterinary world. But in the meantime, yes.

I've got to be a week in the world. II I am. I will be.

Hopefully, I'll be doing something very interesting. Leading other team, which I hope Will will all begin next week by the looks of it. And then, maybe we'll come back and we'll talk about that, that project, because it does have some interesting angles above and beyond the commercial side.

It does feel a bit like an eighties, American soap opera like Dallas, where always somebody got shot. And then we we were wondering whether they survived or not. And, of course, you have to wait a week, whereas now, on Netflix, they tend, you can tend to binge watch, so you, of course, watch the next episode.

Whereas now there isn't another episode. And it might be, you know, a month, two months. So people are going to be on the edge of their seats.

Mark wondering what this next thing is Because you've built that up beautifully. It is a bit like AJ R being shot moment, which anybody sort of under 40 will probably have no idea what I'm talking about. Yeah, probably safe.

Look up. JR in Dallas on the Internet. How do you see the GP practise and the the veterinary practise differing Cos you said there were some similarities, but there's some differences.

Maybe give a few examples apart from that obvious one that you can take people back to the NHS. Yeah, I think I think, we need to do to understand it. You probably need to divide it into primary care, IE, general practise and and secretary care within the hospital system and so forth.

And I think with secondary care for a long time, people have been relatively familiar with the idea of there being a private system and an NHS system. And I think broadly speaking, people knew how that worked. We now see a lot of people going through on self pay.

The practise is based in a local private hospital, and there are a lot of people there who are self paying for operations that would traditionally have long waiting times. Hip replacements, knee replacements, the the classic things you might imagine. And also people are very familiar with the idea of insurance paying for secondary care.

Except for people who are working here from abroad, there really aren't that many people who are insured for primary care for going to the GP. It's just something that hasn't really existed. So private practise has served a very small number of people who are insured and a very thin layer of people at the at the top of the social, social wealth, social economic strata, at least who will be able to afford it or want the privacy that's involved and so forth.

So so the primary side is very different, and it's very fragmented. And in many ways, if you talk to people who were involved in in veterinary economics 20 years ago, a lot of the things that are happening on the on the human side you would argue, are very similar to that. You've got GPS setting up on their own.

You've got all the big insurance companies that try to set up general practises, but because they work differently, they don't necessarily have things that are that successful. And it it is. It is a very different, different business.

And as we said earlier, one of the big differences between the veterinary situation and the the human primary care is the fact that you have always got the option. You have got the NHS option to to take people back to. But that's becoming increasingly difficult because that is difficult to access in certain areas.

And also now because of the huge workload, both, intellectually, which is getting worse for GPS particularly, and also the the sheer number of patients. It's actually getting harder for people to go and actually see their GP. And as much as some of the allied professionals are doing a really good job, there is still the issue of the patient doctor relationship and I think just as people appreciate seeing the same vet with their pet or the same vet on farm, people really appreciate that continuity.

It's not just about what you say and how you say it. Also, who you are makes a difference as to whether somebody will actually take your advice or be satisfied or whatever. And I think increasingly there's a recognition in human health care that the outcome is not about necessarily just curing.

It's about actual patient satisfaction and and in many cases that's equally as important. And you only have to look at things like palliative care and the arguments over euthanasia, to realise why that is very different. So there are some areas that that are completely different, and then there are some areas that are the same.

And the one that I I would like to highlight, which I think is so topical at the moment is what happens if you go see a private GP and then you have to have some tests done, and, just to give you a little bit of an idea, one of the local private practises here is not expensive, but their charge for a haematology sample will be just about 100 and 12 pounds. I don't think there are many veterinary practises that are gonna be charging nap for a full blood count. And and I think this This illustrates perfectly the the problem for the veterinary profession because most people go to the doctor, get their blood sample and never see the bill.

They have no idea what the cost of those things would be involved, and and that and and and that is quite fascinating. And and actually, what people will do in that situation is they will go. OK, well, what I'll do is I'll go and ask my GP to do those tests instead, and I'll get them for free.

Then I'll come back and I'll pay the private GP. So for for an opinion on it. So it it.

There are some big differences and it's much more fragmented. It's much, much, much more, in in the sense you haven't got the dominant players and so forth, and it's hard to predict where we where we will go with that. I think a lot of it will depend on politics and will depend on what the politicians decide that they want to do next.

Well, I think we've seen it even more so with the dentist where you know you literally cannot get hold of a a GP and sorry, an NHS dentist. So therefore, you've ha you know, people have had to go private. And if they haven't got the money, then teeth fall out or or you know, the so it it's it's a bad situation.

Absolutely. And I think that illustrates again the differences. I mean, I think it's quite interesting to to actually compare Private de, you know, dentists with doctors with GPS with, with vets because from the dentists point of view, the big advantage they had over the GPS was GPS were obliged to continue to provide a service, so their ability to actually be militant was much less so than than the dentists.

Ultimately, there was, you know, there was another way someone could get dental care. And I think the the British Dental Association did a good job with the politicians and with their negotiations, and it's going to be very hard for the government to to go back to you know where they would like to go with that. Whereas I think GPS have have have not, they've not taken the opportunity, they they're naturally not a very militant group and they find it very, very hard to find ways of making their case without impacting very badly on on the care of their patients.

And And they they are again, you know, they're a group with a, you know, a lot of stress, a lot of mental health issues, for for the same reasons as we talk about with the vet. I suppose there's that, moral injury that we've talked about, you know, on this podcast channel. If people feel that they can't do things, or they're doing things that they disagree with and it's it is very damaging for them.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, you know, that is clearly an issue with with GPS. But But, as I say, I think it's a much bigger issue in the veterinary side.

I think the counterbalance to that is is whether we like it or not. I think most people would argue that a human life is more important than than a than an animal's life. So you've got that balancing on one side versus the fact that on the veterinary side you're going to be making many more decisions based on quality of life.

Potential euthanasia so forth. So the stresses are different. But they're they're there, aren't they?

In both in both, both professions, the the the way that it's happened in human GPS is quite interesting. We know that the average working life of a a qualified graduate now is very short on the vet side. What's happened on the human side is slightly different.

And what's happened there is there are less and less people who are able to cope with working full time. So or when you look at the total number of GPS in the country, actually, the government can make you quite a reasonable statistic. But if you look at full time equivalents, it's actually quite a different story.

And and that's related to the the pressure of the work and and the number of hours that they work. So there are very few people who will now work what would consider traditionally to do full time in general practise. Yeah, yeah, they they wouldn't they couldn't do that.

It's impossible. Yeah, No, it's really interesting. And I must admit, Mark, I'm very pleased that you're coming back into the veterinary profession because we've missed you for that year or two that you've been out doing GP stuff.

But I'm sure that's been a you know, a huge benefit for them. But I'm being greedy, and we're we're getting you back. And as I say, we are on a bit of a cliffhanger.

So don't leave us hanging too long before we have our our next chat. If if you don't mind. Oh, absolutely not.

No, no problem at all. And I'll, I'll bring you in some graphs of solar charts and and, and and battery storage. And we can we can really make a podcast that only you and I would want to watch.

Well, I think only I know I'm going to be accused of sexism, but I I'm basing it on a reasonable number of people. It does tend to be men who who sort of, you know, follow the charts and try to make sense of them and then talk about them in the pub. Whereas, I think women see the the benefits of of solar, but are so shallow that they have to spend hours just talking about batteries and things.

Yeah. Yeah, you could be right. I think you You you've probably got to contrast, my view of electric motoring with my wife's to get a good example of that.

It's it's a very, very different experience hearing her talk about the same vehicle as I do. So, yeah, I think you're probably on fairly safe ground there. You'd probably be OK with that comment.

Well, thank you, Mark. I I'm not sure that that you're the person who can actually tell me that, because we're we're probably a bit too similar, but we'll we'll see if we get anybody shouting at me. Ah, indeed.

We will wait and find out. Yeah, really good to, to see you and to chat. And I think about, you know, joking aside some really important issues.

One of my themes for this year is is to get 300 practises to put solar panels on their roof because that would have a massive effect. You know, we want to, reduce carbon by about 50% in the veterinary industry within the next 7 to 10 years. How are we going to do that?

The longer we leave it, the more difficult it will be, so getting practises to start embracing that to put solar on the roof, I think can be a you know, a massive step forward. So, hopefully anybody's listening and, has got the bug from listening to us. It's not only now, an environmental and a moral imperative, but actually, it makes financial sense to do it If you've got a little bit of money behind you, go and get some solar panels and it's it is nice when you're not having to pay the greedy energy companies money for for, free electricity from the sun.

So thanks again, Mark. Appreciate your time. Thanks, everyone for listening and, hopefully see you on another podcast or a webinar Very soon.

Take care. Bye bye.