Employee Development

We offer the best learning, education and development in the profession.

 Our people are at the heart of everything we do and we’ve developed a market-leading learning, education and development programme for all colleagues to help them progress their careers.

As a large group, CVS provides multiple sites and facilities to be able to train in on the job, whilst still working full time. Our large network of experienced colleagues can also help train and support less experienced colleagues, ensure we collaborate and share best practice, and give access to top tier clinical expertise.

• An in-house team of 35 people (including vets and nurses) develop our LED programme and courses. Over 60% of our courses are delivered internally.
• Clinical development is the core aspect of our training. We offer our clinicians industry-leading Continued Professional Development and provide a culture of recommending the best possible treatment. This includes sponsoring further qualifications for vets, such as certificates including the RCVS CertAVP and European diplomas.
• Our national network of 15 hub clinical leads (experienced vets) support our first opinion practices by teaching advanced diagnostics and techniques and by mentoring vets developing interests in specific disciplines.
• CVS’ Vet Oracle vet-to-vet telemedicine service Vet Oracle offer specialist interpretation of results and practical virtual assistance to our vets. It now has five specialisms: cardiology, dermatology, medicine, neurology, oncology, radiology.
• Our unique CVTC nurse training centre in Chester is in the top 6 of 96 nursing schools in England, has achieved above national first time pass rates for 7 out of 8 modules and has an OFSTED good rating. We have just opened a new satellite college in Dereham.
• We’ve invested in state-of-the-art training facilities including flexible wet lab teaching space – where we run practical courses such as dentistry or surgery – upskilling our clinical teams in a safe environment and enabling quality assurance to our high standard.
• Our Knowledge Hub educational platform offers over 261 courses and 235 webinars – covering a wide range of clinical and non-clinical education and training. Many of our e-learning sessions are run by our specialists.
• BSAVA’s full library of veterinary resources is offered free to our colleagues. Home to all BSAVA publications, it covers the spectrum of small animal veterinary practice.
• CVS’ graduate induction programme is one of the longest running (15 years) and is industry leading. It supports vets in the all-important first two years in practice via training camps, Graduate Development Programme Advisers for day-to-day support, and two unique dedicated Pastoral Support Vets who look after the wellbeing of our graduates.
• Our student nurse induction programme is industry leading. Colleagues are trained via MiNurse Academy, our very own e-learning platform, exclusively for RVNs. This provides a year of CPD and development through online and distance learning. Nurses are also allocated clinical supervisor to develop their clinical skills.
• We partner with universities to assist students with their extramural studies and we also lecture at universities. We use our network of UK practices to support students doing their extra mural training courses.
• We run an industry leading apprenticeship programme in which we have invested £4m to date. We are currently training 400 apprentices, a scale unseen in the sector.
• Accredited leadership and management development programmes are offered to colleagues through all stages of their career.

To find out more about development at CVS, search current vacancies or to sign up for job alerts, please visit careerswithcvs.co.uk