Alan Robinson – MRCVS, Vet Dynamics

Alan Robinson has been a veterinary surgeon in practice for 20+ years, a successful business consultant for 18 years to over 600 practices and a director of Vet Dynamics.  His mission is helping independent practice owners improve performance and quality of life in practice.

For the UK, purchase and consolidation of vet practices started around 20 years ago with a change in legislation allowing non vets to own practices.  This has led to very large independently owned businesses and large partnerships and a handful of much larger ‘corporate’ vet groups.  This is in sharp contrast to much of mainland Europe where a fragmented market of small privately owned vet practices is still the norm.  But a number of the larger players who operate in the UK are now moving into Europe.  What are the lessons to be learnt from the UK, probably the most mature veterinary market in the world right now.  Can ‘corporatisation’ of the profession lead to a rise in standards?  Is there a danger that profit will be come more important than values? What are the alternative ways to exit your practice, including selling to your team?  What other models are available? Does maturity leave space for new start ups?  David Giraldi has worked in practice in the UK and Italy and has spoken at vet congresses across the world.  He explains why he made the decision to join Vet Partners in Italy and assesses the lessons that can be learnt from the UK experience.  He is in conversation with Alan Robinson of Vet Dynamics, a business consultancy based in the UK that works largely with independent practice.