Referral Clinical Director

London Vet Specialists; Swindon; On-site; GBP 65,000 - GBP 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A premier veterinary hospital in Swindon is seeking a Clinical Director to lead their team and enhance clinical care quality. The ideal candidate will have a strong veterinary background, proven leadership experience, and a passion for mentorship and strategic growth. Responsibilities include ensuring high-performing clinical operations, implementing best practices in patient care, and fostering a collaborative environment. This role offers competitive benefits, including extensive CPD funding and opportunities for career development.

Benefits

5 weeks holiday plus bank holidays

RCVS and VDS fees paid

External CPD funded

Career progression opportunities

Life Assurance

Employer contribution pension scheme

Wellness program including flu jab

Qualifications

• Proven experience in veterinary leadership roles.
• Strong understanding of clinical governance and quality improvement.
• Ability to foster a collaborative team environment.

Responsibilities

• Lead clinical team to deliver high-quality patient care.
• Ensure operational efficiency and develop staff.
• Engage in strategic planning for hospital's growth.

Skills

Leadership

Mentoring

Clinical Governance

Strategic Vision

Education

Veterinary Degree

RCVS Registration

Job description

Overview

Eastcott Referrals has a fantastic opportunity for a Clinical Director to join their team. This integral leadership role will form part of the hospital's senior leadership team (SLT) working closely with the Hospital Director (HD) and clinical teams. This is an exciting opportunity for a referral specialist vet who has a passion for mentoring, leadership and further development at a senior level whilst still having an opportunity to continue with some clinical duties.

Further details regarding the role are as follows:

Main Purpose and Goals

Leadership

• Lead in the delivery of all aspects of clinical quality, operational efficiency, development of the hospital team, customer service and commercial performance.
• Provide a clear strategic vision and operational clarity that supports the hospital in achieving its objectives.
• Create a high performing culture that is challenging, supportive and collaborative whilst developing leadership and clinical capabilities across all associates.

Clinical Delivery, Quality and Governance

• Design and implement lean, simple and customer-centered systems and processes that deliver high quality clinical care.
• Create a culture of high-quality care, quality outcomes and customer service.
• Ensure effective governance and assurance controls are in place to enhance quality & outcomes including the use of risk assessments and audit, learning and development, and technical and service development.
• Carry out clinical duties as a veterinary Specialist.

Future Strategy & Growth

• Contribute to the delivery of annual/long term performance reviews and future strategic / operating plans for the hospital.
• Identify and implement innovative ideas that lead to the development of the hospital and the wider Linnaeus Group.

Key Responsibilities

Leadership

• Develop and deliver a shared vision to members of the clinical team, engaging and inspiring the team to contribute to the development of clinical activities within the hospital.
• Effectively lead change across the vet team through ensuring a collaborative approach with associates and ensuring that the reasons for change are effectively communicated, understood, owned and implemented.
• Focusing on the veterinary team, build a high performing team through the attraction and retention of highly skilled and capable clinical associates.
• Create a high performance culture through effective communication by demonstrating an awareness of different communication styles and behaviours and responding to these.

Clinical Delivery, Quality and Governance

• Create the local clinical strategy ensuring that all members of the clinical team are involved and that proposed initiatives and programmes enhance quality and service outcomes.
• Deliver the highest quality clinical care and outcomes with focus on:
  • Safety: avoiding harm to patients from care that is intended to help them
  • Timely: avoiding unnecessary delays to care that may cause harm
  • Effective: Providing evidence based services
  • Efficient: Avoiding waste, minimising duplication, optimising productivity
  • Person centred: establishing connections with clients and referring vets to deliver high quality care
• Create and implement quality improvement activities including audit, risk assessment and clinical governance processes, benchmarking with other referral practices and responding to learning opportunities.
• Create a culture of professional development including effective CPD, student placements, residency and internship programmes and clinical research, ensuring compliance with RCVS requirements.
• Ensure compliance with all statutory, legal and regulatory areas relating to clinical practice including, for example, RCVS, GDPR, Health and Safety etc.
• Input to Linnaeus wide accreditation standards e.g. RCVS PSS and ISFM Cat Friendly Clinics and other national projects and initiatives.
• Carry out clinical duties as a veterinary Specialist.

Commercial performance

• Be accountable for delivering veterinary clinical quality, efficiency and productivity, commercial growth, people metrics, associate engagement and customer experience
• As a member of the SLT be accountable for the development and delivery of the annual budget and financial targets including revenue, payroll, stock, consumables, capital expenditure, pricing, cost control and debt management
• Create a culture and be a role model for building positive empathetic relationships with clients, offering excellent levels of service with clear communication including obtaining appropriate consents, having fee estimates in place, providing clear treatment recommendations and effective complaint oversight and management.
• Create a culture and be a role model across the clinical teams for building effective support relationships with referring vets, including clear communication, outcome correspondence, competitive CPD programmes, advice / service support, and issue resolution.

Future Strategy and Growth

• Use metrics and market intelligence to identify the hospital’s current clinical positioning, its strengths, risks and opportunities to create a future change plan for improvement and growth across the performance metrics.
• Work with the Head of Nursing Services and veterinary service heads to define an achievable clinical strategy that aims to deliver the best veterinary care and provide additional products and services.
• Identify unique services and lines where market opportunities exist and work with the HD and SLT to create business cases for growth and investment.
• Create a culture where the clinical team work collaboratively with the marketing team and BRM to effectively understand the customer needs and enhance their experience.
• Ensure that the clinical, and marketing agendas enhance brand awareness and perception, and support business growth through effective vet relationships, enhanced clinical services, CPD programmes and website support.
• Contribute to product, service and growth opportunities within the wider Linnaeus group and Mars Veterinary Health.

Benefits

• 5 weeks holiday plus bank holidays and Birthday Leave (Holiday days and bank holiday days would be pro-rata for a 4-day week)
• RCVS and VDS fees paid
• External CPD funded
• Extensive free online Linnaeus CPD program
• Career progression opportunities
• Staff discount schemes
• Life Assurance
• Enhanced sickness pay
• Enhanced equal family leave
• E-car salary sacrifice scheme
• Employer contribution pension scheme
• Wellness program including:
  • Employee assistance program
  • Eyecare voucher scheme
  • Free annual Flu jab
  • Cycle to work scheme
  • Recruitment referral reward scheme

About us

We are a tier 3, ISFM gold status, multidisciplinary veterinary hospital that prides itself on providing extremely high standards of care to our patients.

Eastcott Veterinary Referrals is situated in Swindon. Swindon borders the Wiltshire countryside with vast areas of outstanding natural beauty and yet also benefits from excellent transport links to the South West, London and Midlands.

Eastcott Referrals recently underwent a major extension and refurbishment meaning it's a great time to join our dynamic and motivated team that has benefited from the support of the Linnaeus Group and Mars Petcare. This investment in our state-of-the-art facilities has allowed us to provide the best care to our patients, and the opportunity to perform the most up-to-date and innovative procedures. We encourage our staff to undertake further professional and personal development and provide a friendly and supportive environment in which our teams can flourish and enjoy their work.

If you would like to apply for this position or discuss in more detail please contact [e-mail]