Our Support
Every important decision we make takes into consideration the impact it will have on our people in practice.
Focus On The Job
Our practices are backed by the strengths of operating within a group that is run at every level by vets, including on the Board of Directors. All decisions are made based on a deep understanding of how they will affect our people and practices.
Expert central teams in IT, HR, Health & Safety, Recruitment, Finance and Procurement also support each of our practices with the management of their site, leaving our veterinary colleagues free to focus on caring for our patients.
Clinical Support
We have a wide support network for all of our clinicians so a practitioner is never alone when dealing with a case.
Our Regional Clinical Leads support all of our practices in achieving the highest clinical standards and help them to implement clinical quality improvements.
Our Advanced Clinical Services Network of over 30 advanced peripatetic practitioners (both vets and veterinary nurses) supports colleagues in primary care practices - to make advanced treatments available to clients that would otherwise necessitate referral elsewhere.
Our vet-to-vet telemedicine service Vet Oracle (our virtual vet hospital) offers specialist interpretation of results and practical virtual assistance to our vets. It has six specialisms: cardiology, dermatology, medicine, neurology, oncology and radiology. Providing specialist input into cases, our Vet Oracle specialists guide our general practitioners to the next advanced level of their skills.
These support networks allow our first opinion general practitioners to track their cases by shadowing our advanced practitioners, increasing general practice clinical knowledge and shared experiences for our vets and veterinary nurses.
Supporting wellbeing
We have a network of Pastoral Support Vets, mentors and wellbeing champions that help our colleagues to look after their mental health, their career and to do their best work.
CVS places great importance on line manager conversations and has introduced Check-Ins to ensure all colleagues are getting the time and engagement needed from their manager. As well as providing feedback on performance and identifying development opportunities, these regular check-ins are designed to support colleagues’ wellbeing.
We have over 350 Wellbeing Champions. They are all formally trained and certified to administer first aid for mental health. They can offer help to someone developing a mental health problem, experiencing a worsening of an existing mental illness or a mental health crisis. We have introduced a Wellbeing Calendar for colleagues featuring topics such as resilience, exercise, sleep and stress, and have also run a number of informative and empathetic podcasts discussing topics such as men’s mental health and cancer. In addition, we have launched a new CVS Refresh reward scheme where teams receive a weekly allowance to spend on treats, classes and other activities of their choosing to support their wellbeing.
We offer an enhanced package of benefits and policies for our colleagues to help maintain their wellbeing.
Find out more about wellbeing
Promoting Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
We care about being a truly inclusive organisation and we have programmes around our business to ensure that all of our colleagues feel welcome.
In 2022, we introduced a clearly-stated Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy and EDI Committee. We have also recruited 60 colleagues for our five Colleague EDI groups, focusing on: ability and neurodiversity; ethnicity; gender; LGBTQ+; and social mobility.
As well as introducing crucial revised policies covering EDI and bullying, harassment and incivility, we have also launched an original EDI training course for all CVS colleagues, a Reasonable Adjustments Guide, and a range of policies and initiatives to support our colleagues.
A regular culture survey-question now measures whether our colleagues feel equally included at work. The proportion of colleagues reporting they feel equally included at work has risen from 75.0% (Feb 2022) to 83.6% (Jun 2023). Whilst the proportion of colleagues reporting they feel safe to present themselves at work, saw a rise from 73.0% (Feb 2022) to 84.6% (Jun 2023).