Good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's webinar kindly sponsored by MWI Animal Health. For those that haven't heard from you yet, my name is Jackie. I'm the head of memberships here at the webinar vets, and I have the pleasure of chairing tonight's webinar on good.

Veterinary workplaces, which we all aspire to create and work in, so I'm really looking forward to this. The usual webinar rules apply, if you have any questions, hover your mouse on the screen, click on the Q&A box, and we will cover as many of those as we can at the end of the session. So without further delay, allow me to introduce your speaker, those of you that are fairly astute will notice it may not be, Daniela dos Santos, who you were expecting.

Unfortunately she has been retained in practise, removing stones from a dog's bladder, which I'm sure we all completely understand. So we are joined by the lovely James Russell, who has stepped into Daniela's shoes for the night. James is a 2002 RBC graduate who worked in mixed practise as a farm vet before becoming a director in 2011.

He left practise in 2018 to pursue interest in infectious diseases on farms and has been involved with the BVA since 2008, rising to the pinnacle of the current BVA president. So a very warm welcome to webinar vet James. Thank you very much for joining us tonight, and I will hand over to you.

Thank you, Jackie, for that very kind introduction and and welcome to everyone who's here this evening. And my apologies for not being Daniela. I do appreciate the disappointment that that will be, but I hope you all understand, I'm sure being involved in practises, you will understand that when she phoned me earlier today, earlier this evening to say she was just anaesthetizing this, this animal that we recognised that we were going to have to prioritise that for her time this evening.

So, I'm here very comfortable and pleased to be able to talk about our veterinary workplace and a good veterinary workplace guidance, the origins of it, and what we would like to be considered to be the next steps for it and how it might be used in practise. And There may be some questions where I might end up saying I would quite like to defer to Daniella on that, and I know when Jackie Steph and I were speaking before this session, we agreed that, you know, we would make sure we keep channels of communication open after the webinar so that if there are any questions that remain unanswered by the end of our time together, that we can find a way of of of picking those up in the fullness of time. What I would like to encourage as well, you know, I've got the chat box open on my other screen.

So, you know, if there's, if there's things that are coming up in the, conversation that you're unsure about unclear about, or you would like to explore a bit further, appreciate that we've just said we'll put stuff into Q&A for those, further delving into type questions at the end, but if there are any clarifications as we go along, then please feel free to use the chat as well, and I'll keep half an eye, onto that. So, let's move on then to what makes a good veterinary workplace. And I'd like to really start with the background to this because one of the things that I'm most proud about with this whole, veterinary workplace piece is that I think we've taken the profession as a whole from a position of speaking in terms of anecdote and experience and so on.

Into one of being much more evidence-based in terms of our appreciation of what makes a good workplace. And what I would hope you take from this now is how you're going to apply that evidence in the right way for your practise, for your vets, for your teams, as we go forward. So this goes back really to the Futures initiative, which was a joint BBA RCVS project, and it identified some key aims.

It said it wanted, we needed to develop a confident, resilient, healthy, and well supported profession, which was undertaking diverse and rewarding career paths. And in 2016, the Vet Futures Action Plan was published, and BVA embraced the task of undertaking a veterinary workforce study that could provide evidence we could use to develop and sustain a happy, healthy profession. And we'll have a quick look at what that evidence showed us as we move into this next slide.

So we worked alongside, Professor Michelle Ryan and Doctor Christopher Begay at the University of Exeter to deliver this project. And I know that many of you may well have seen Michelle and Chris speak at previous BVA congresses. And what we recognised was that stress, burnout, and a lack of career progression were all leading to the, the leaky bucket as we come to talk about it now, of colleagues leaving the profession.

We knew that we were very, very good at describing what the problems were that were contributing to the leaks in that bucket as well at times to the supply that we were able to put into that bucket, but the challenge was in understanding the causes behind those problems and how those various factions were interlinked. So this piece of work, the motivation, Satisfaction and Retention Study, was published in November 2018, and it sets out how vets' day to day experiences in the workplace were shaping their intention to stay in or to leave the profession. And I think that this graphic summarises how each of these elements, fits in and, and impacts on motivation, satisfaction and retention.

The report concludes with the quote that's on the screen, and we'll just read us through it. So taken together, these results suggest that if the profession as a whole can implement practises that facilitate feeling valued, fitting in, and the availability of role models, this is likely to have multiple benefits in terms of cultivating a cohort of vets who are strongly motivated in their careers, who are satisfied with their jobs, and who are keen to stay with the profession. So this piece of work also fed into the Exeter study on gender discrimination in the veterinary sector.

And ultimately that led to BVA carrying out the very first discrimination survey study in 2019. This found that nearly 25% of us in the UK had experienced discrimination in the workplace in the previous year. And the most protected, the sorry, the most common protected characteristics that the incidents related to were, sex or gender with 44%, race or ethnicity, age, and then pregnancy and parental leave.

Most troublingly to me, nearly 2/3 of this was not reported, and only 1/10 were considered to have been dealt with satisfactorily. That surely makes us ask some questions about how our profession was feeling. When this survey was undertaken 3 years ago, because how can we feel valued and like we fit in if we're not treated fairly or if we're discriminated against.

So I said we found no problem with sussing out the problems, but we wanted to work on to think about how we were going to help resolve them. And we gathered all of this research from the Exeter Work and our own discrimination research, and we set up the Good Places Working Group, and this was chaired by past president Gudrum Ravitz, who had also led the work with Exeter, so she saw this project right through from beginning to end. And the working group was tasked with reviewing the evidence and looking at best practise both inside and outside the veterinary profession and really ultimately, to draught a very detailed policy position for us.

And that position, which includes all of that evidence, all that research as references, is available on our website for everyone to read. It's really important to note that we specifically designed this with all veterinary workplaces in mind, not just practises. So, it's applicable to everyone here today, whether you're working in a practise or a different veterinary workplace.

And we use this position to develop the good workplace's voluntary code and the workbook. I'm going to walk through the code, but I would like to stress that there is a lot more detail in the position if you want to look at any more detail at any of the aspects. And the code in the workbook are available for BVA members to download from the website.

A copy of the code was also sent to all members with the vet record, towards the end of last year. Now, I'll talk through the chapters and highlight some of the main points, but again, important to stress from the outset. This is all about veterinary teams coming together to work on what's right for you as a team.

And that's why in the workbook, we recommend reflecting on, on each chapter in relation to you and your team. And look at that right-hand image, we've got that sort of space in the workbook, physically in the workbook for people to complete the thoughts that they have in their team meetings. And I think it's also important to highlight that the workbook sets out ideas for both employers and employees and recognises that we all have a responsibility for making our workplaces better.

I would like to just pause a little bit there to reflect, given the particular audience we have tonight of, practise managers. We would be encouraging you to give this whole concept as much space and as much thought in your team meetings and as much resource in terms of time commitment from whoever's leading this within your practises as you would for any other major decision, major change that you're making in your practise. And I will come back to that, but I just wanted to put that in our heads as being, that's where we would see this sitting, but it's an agenda item on any management meeting that those reports back on steps taken, actions fulfilled, and the outcomes of those actions as well.

I'll go on and work through the different chapters of this. And as I've already stressed in that sort of preface, preface, there is, There's a lot more detail to this both on the website in the guide, and also in some of the blogs that we've released over a period of a period of a few months now, which again are accessible through the website and reflect on different aspects of what it is that we talk about through these chapters. You'll notice that our final chapter is the one that talks about culture, and I mentioned that as we introduced the first chapter here on health and well-being, because I think it's so important that we see culture running right through, that we recognise where our culture is now and how this document and working through this process can build and develop that culture.

And I'd like us to sort of take that in our mind through the different pieces that we work through here as well. So in terms of health and wellbeing, you know, this is ultimately about asking us to foster and support a culture that respects personal health and We, we didn't have a kind of crystal ball when we wrote this to think about what that was going to mean in terms of COVID, in terms of furlough, in terms of returning to work after furlough of teams working in bubbles and all of those different challenges that we've seen and hopefully in many cases overcome in the last year. But I think that personal health and respecting personal health is something which has changed perhaps a little bit, hasn't it, in our ethos as a country, particularly driven perhaps by COVID.

And if I think back to to my time in practise, you know, it's, it was, we were still in a position where it was a badge of honour to, you know, to drag yourself into work on your lips, packed to the eyeballs with different, you know, over the counter medications in order to carry out a day's work. And I think what this tries to recognise is that that's just not helpful, is it? You know, quite apart from the fact that we're not giving our best at work, that we're not recovering as quickly as we can do, we're also then spreading that that illness around the rest of our colleagues.

So really important, I think that we reflect and alter what we understand by respecting personal health. And again, you'll see workplace stress come through a number of times through this piece and. Recognising that A bowl of fruit on the, on the kitchen table or, you know, a bowling trip on a Saturday afternoon or whatever it may be, you know, they're the kind of nice to haves really of of workplace and stress.

They're the cherries on the cake, that we need to take a very proactive approach to how we manage the ethos, coming back to that work culture that makes feeling stressed at work just as abnormal as turning up to work ill, as we talked about in my first point. That also goes on, of course, in their look to say let's recognised that we all share this responsibility for ourselves and for each other. And we respect each other's limitations.

A diversity, equality and fair treatment chapter goes straight back really to that study, which found that 25% of us have experienced discriminatory language in the previous 12 months. This is, look, in any team, we just have no tolerance of prejudice or discrimination. And one of the things which I hope is evolving around our country anyway is through the next.

Generation, I'm certainly delighted to hear the way that my, teenage children now talk about calling out, inappropriate language, inappropriate actions in a way that, you know, that my, cohort of, of friends just would not have done at that age, you know, at that school age. They would have recognised something was wrong, they would have wanted to make it right, but wouldn't have necessarily have called it out in the right way. And I do believe that that's something that's evolving and evolving for the better, but we need to hasten that evolution in our practises because we're not all, you know, working as they are in school, and we're not all working with young teenagers.

So we need to help people to understand how they can do that in a safe way, in a, a way which is going to yield results, but ultimately is going to help reduce, the likelihood of an occurrence and certainly reduce the impact of any inappropriate language, inappropriate actions. And I think that part of that is challenging ourselves, isn't it? It's about understanding that Terms which may have been common parlance, even a few years ago are not acceptable in a modern workplace and in modern conversation, and being able to have those conversations with colleagues when perhaps they get that wrong through no ill will, but perhaps through ill education.

One that we dwelt on quite heavily was the fair and transparent transparent recruitment process, and I'm still struck by the number of adverts that occur in the vet record, which don't highlight, for example, the salary that might be attached to a role, and that's something I'd be Interested to explore with you this evening as practise managers, is why is that? Why do we still feel that it's OK to advertise the job without having stated, what the sort of expectations are within that role for, for salary and remuneration more generally. Adding to that as well then the sort of blind assessment of CVs, perhaps taking names away, it was one of the most startling facts I found from that diversity equality survey that we carried out with Exeter University was that not just did we still have a culture whereby people were potentially more likely to employ a candidate based on a male name than a female name.

And more likely to pay that person between 1 and 3000 pounds more based on the only difference in their CV being a male name rather than a female name. They're also more likely to put that person forward for promotion and more likely to take that person seriously. So far, so, you know, so.

So what, to an extent, not so what in terms of it happening, but this isn't new news, I'm sure for many of us. What I found really startling was that when that was put alongside questions about do you believe that discrimination based on gender still exists within the veterinary profession, those most likely to say this wasn't a problem with those also most likely to demonstrate that discrimination in those recruitment and retention practises that we that we tested them on. So I'm in a diversity champion within the practise to recognise when these issues are occurring and to be able to report back on them, but also have some meaningful outcome from those reports going back is a really helpful idea.

And again, you know, this is making sure, you know, if any of you have seen the designated survivor series, you recognised that he became president from being the minister for housing in the was put in as the minister for housing because no one really wanted to listen to what he was saying. I think it's really important, isn't it, that we don't fall into that trap, that diversity champion, that it's not just a, you know, a yellow badge that we give away or whatever. It's something which is actually taken in to our management meetings and into our management approach to the practise in a meaningful way.

We looked again, in, workload and flexibility and said, can we revisit? That culture and challenge that culture which endorses those incredibly long hours that we work. And I think particularly pernicious in that, isn't it, is the, it never did me any harm, brigade.

Can we challenge that? Can we now say we accept that it is not right that somebody is working incredibly tired, that they, and this, this was reported back to us, that they will avoid having a drink during the day because it's better to be dehydrated than to need a wee and not have the time for a loo break. So, you know, this is the pressure that some people are working under with their workload.

And I think it's incumbent on all of us, isn't it, in positions of management to recognise that that's not how we're going to develop long-lasting fulfilled careers within our profession. This is one of my favourite little cartoons, of the entire, the entire piece. I I just absolutely love, love it that, this, this vet turning up here with a, with a sandwich for the surgeon who's just finished and he's incredibly grateful.

And, and the whole workplace, guidance is littered with these little cartoons that just, I think, bring this to life really nicely, a very user-friendly document, I hope you would find. We've talked already about the importance of pay being fair, and transparent and equal to all employees relevant to their roles. But we also know, and, you know, this won't be the first time we've talked about this, or you've talked about this, I'm sure, of, you know, a salary and of pay being a hygiene factor when it comes to how well rewarded and recognised you feel at work.

So when we talk about this, we talk about it in terms of saying, let's get salary to a point where it's not the key topic of conversation. Beyond that, let's now think about how we're actually going to reward and recognise people within our work culture. And again, you know, a bowl of fruits very nice.

Given to an EO class, very nice, but actually giving some autonomy, giving some control of their own destiny and . If you are going to offer benefits, offering them a way in a way which is accessible to all, so they're not all about childcare or about, pamper sessions or whatever it may be, that there's things in there which are accessible to all of our employees is something that we believe, or we have recognised will make a huge difference to the way people feel in their, in their workplaces. In terms of thinking more about the individual, we recognise that, There are a number of practises out there still, for whom the idea of career progression, appraisals, perhaps sometimes even contracts are, a bit of an anathema.

I'm sure that by definition of being here tonight that you're not in that position, but it's never a wrong time, is it, to just step back and reflect on how are we . Updating, refreshing, checking the relevance of, our role descriptions of people's career development steps and recognising that actually there might just be a bit more to this than just the professional development that this brings directly to the practise. And asking what of that personal development, what are the bits that we need to, enable to happen through the culture of our practise to allow people to develop as, individuals as well as, parts of the machine that is our, that is our workplace.

And the idea of aligning personal interests and benefits to the organisation is one which I think we can recognise can be captured very powerfully, when we, when we see it work well, when we have somebody whose drive is to push sustainable agriculture in Derbyshire and we find the right. Who wants to do that and wants to work with our farmers to do it. That's a real treat, isn't it, when you unlock that that personal goal and it becomes very closely aligned to the organisation and you find those goals out, don't you through good communication and regular update of those role descriptions and the personal review.

We We also recognise that all of this needs underpinning by a human level of support as well. And I think one of the big learnings that I took away from my time as a as a director in our practise was that in common, I think with with many practises through that period of time, we expanded quite significantly, particularly on our farm side, felt that we sort of had to expand to stand still as the farm work was becoming different to how it had been, you know, back in the sort of Harriot's era. And yet we were still trying to run all of our management and HR processes in the same way as we had done when we were a much smaller team, and it provided some real challenges until we recognised that that was not going to be compatible with developing bigger teams and allowing individuality to shine within those bigger teams.

So this brings together a number of things that we've talked about earlier on. It brings together the recruitment processes, contracts when people get the, the proactive performance management, and, you know, actually just putting the time and the money into that. But I think it also comes through the other end as well, doesn't it, of helping people to understand what they should do if they are unhappy with somebody in the practise and knowing that there is a safe way, a safe space to be able to actually report that and to have some action come from it, because all too often, sadly, we hear the stories of people who've left the profession.

Because of an overpowering boss, whatever it may have been, how can we make sure that that's picked up and worked with fairly and again, by investing the time, the effort as a team in developing that culture of an open and no blame ability to make, to raise those concerns. So I said we would sort of come to culture at the end of our thought processes here, but that it ran straight through it. So, everything that we've done points towards this, doesn't it?

If we get all of these other bits right, then we're fostering a positive workplace culture. We are, Very likely, I would suggest to improve teamwork, to raise morale, to increase productivity and efficiency, and hugely importantly as well, of course, to enhance retention. We all know, don't we, the costs of needing to recruit, train up and support somebody new to the team, and that feels especially galling if you feel like you've lost that person because of some inaction within your own management practises, doesn't it?

So We're evolving from where we are. There isn't a right way to evolve. There isn't a right pace to evolve, but I think that all of us could go back to our teams and think about how might we make this evolution.

And so what we've asked people to do, I say that the workplace came out to to all members of BPA towards the end of last year, and it came out in this poster format with this box on the bottom here to be able to sign up and discuss this as a team. And what we're asking you to do is to start from the position of saying, what do we do well, what can we then improve, and what are our actions therefore, to take those next steps. And Just by asking individual team members to demonstrate their individual commitment to being part of a good workplace by signing up to the code can be incredibly powerful.

I think it's really important to say, we're not saying we'll sign up to this at the point where we feel like we've got everything right. We're signing up to this to say that we're actively working towards making improvements within our own workplaces. And just to reiterate, you know, this is applicable across all workplaces, all sectors.

We're not just talking about, we're not just talking about veterinary practises. So I mentioned the blogs that we've talked about and There's a number of those on the screen here, so we have Brad Hill talking about inclusivity in the equine profession. And I wrote that piece around living and betting with dyslexia, which is, how does that fit into a good workplace?

Well, you know, it's hugely important to me that one, we're able to actually access the materials and access the, the ethos and the spirit of, of our veterinary workplace, without being inhibited by those specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia. But there's a number of those out there really would encourage you to to have a look at them. We, Began that last October when we focused on diversity inclusion.

We put out these blog posts, we put out some social media graphics, and then we had our first ever Twitter takeover, and that was done by the student-led diversity group Animal Aspirations. And we was absolutely delighted with some of the outcomes that came from that. It was just a brilliant, brilliant day.

And each month since then, we've shared a whole range of our content and you know, you'll find all of these blogs on the website. We've . Delved a little bit deeper into each of these chapters through a number of webinars as well.

What I would like to point you to today is that we're continuing to share the good workplace case studies and the tips and the messages that are coming from people who've embarked on this journey. Some of you may have seen the November series, the replacement for London Bet Show, the not London Be Show last year. Tanya Crawley talking about how her practise had picked up and just begun the journey of where they were going with this, with this document.

It's a fantastic piece to have a look at, I think if you haven't seen it before, but we're hoping that Tanya will come back and join us again to update us on the progress that she's made. And to highlight not just, you know, the positive progress, but also, as we've already alluded to, this isn't a straight line graph, and this isn't a, a one size fits all approach to developing a good workplace. It is going to be different for each veterinary workplace.

A quote from Daniella at the point at which we launched this policy position, and Daniela said to us, look, this is a golden opportunity for our profession to take ownership of our workplaces, improve conditions, and make sure that we have a positive working environment in which we can all take pride. And I think that that is the key message from us today, is that this is a team effort. We don't need to think we've got to hit all of those 7 chapters in one go.

We don't need to think that we need to have completed any of those chapters. To be demonstrating to our workforce that we are a a workplace which is committed to their future as well as the future of that workplace and that we're able to support everybody through the development of that of that position. And I think .

My, my sort of final, final comment on it is that. Based on that hashtag down at the bottom there really, we need to make this change, don't we? We need to improve what we're doing.

I do recognise that there is a very grave risk at a session like this of preaching to the choir when it comes to thinking about, Both diversity inclusion, but also developing good workplaces in other ways as well. But we are in a situation where we train for almost as long as we might expect to have a career, and every step that any of us can take to helping support people to remain in our profession. Has to be a positive for all of us because ultimately, how are we going to bring some of those workload things down?

We're going to bring them down by giving people an opportunity to, to fill their days with work which is productive for our veterinary workplace, be that practise, be another work environment, but let's just stick with practise for a moment. If we give people the time, space, to, and the autonomy. To be able to fill their days with productive work for that practise and to be able to do that in a way which is manageable.

That has to improve our productivity. It has to improve our efficiency. It has to improve our ability to put other staff into that workplace as well, and that has to be good for all of us in terms of improving work-life balance, feelings of fulfilment at work, and that feeling of being in a positive work environment.

And I thank you very much for your attention over the last 30 minutes and would invite any kind of questions, comments, queries on any aspect of what we've talked about tonight, or indeed any other aspects of good veterinary workplace that you would wish to discuss this evening. But, thank you, Jackie. Thank you so much James.

That was wonderful. I'm just gonna give a little bit of time just to see if there's any questions coming through. But fantastic.

I mean, the information that you've provided there particular, that those seven chapters, you know, it, it's exceptional. I think it's, it's so important at the moment that we do look after one another. I think the veterinary industry as a whole, we're making.

Big steps in, in doing that, you know, the not one more vet movement, we know there's a lot of, a lot of threats to our, our veterinary colleagues out there, we need to support them as much as possible, and I think this is a really good way to bring up to that practise level and look after the, the whole team. And let's see. Jackie, can I just pick up on that?

This isn't something I anticipated discussing this evening, but, since you've just mentioned, not one more bet, I'd like to pick up on that if I may. Another of my roles in life is that I'm a, a trustee for as well as a volunteer for BetLife, . And I would like to draw people's attention, if I may, to the excellent blog that Rosie Allister, our helpline manager wrote recently about how to have conversations around suicide, and specifically how to have conversations around suicide within the profession.

And I mentioned that after you've just raised, not one more bet because there are aspects of that, approach which do raise a couple of concerns against what against the evidence base. And those are things about, sort of normalising, if you like, suicide as a, as a sensible route out of, of, of distress and, depression. But also that it that there is some of the language in there which risks making this, an antagonistic act between between vets and clients or teams and clients.

And so we absolutely value the work that's been done to raise the questions about, how do we make sure that, that our veterinary colleagues and all of our colleagues I do I dealt with with respect and with integrity and that they are not put under that pressure. But I think if people wanted to engage in that, and I really would encourage them to, people wanted to engage in that, then I would really point them towards, say, Rosie's blog piece, which I can find the link for if you wanted to share that around later, Jackie. But also, The Be Kind graphics, which, which, which PVA have been working on, so the Be Kind to your vet.

And we've developed those to try and do exactly that to support colleagues in the way you're describing Jackie, but in a way which hopefully embraces everybody involved in that conversation. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

And certainly if you send me that link, we can get that shared across to everybody. I think that's really, really valuable information. You know, we certainly, I think I kind of took what you were saying about, you know, it's about the personal developments as well as professional developments.

You know, and that's the thing, and it's on an individual level, but on a practise scale as well. I think that's that's really important for everybody and we're certainly all about that on the webinar. You know, that's why we kind of, we balance all of our educational stuff, with our, you know, mindfulness that we do with our meditation on a Sunday, you know, and try and kind of get that balance in and help, you know, members of the veterinary community to get that balance into their lives as well.

I think it is, it's important, isn't it, these days more than ever. Hugely important and as you say it at the moment, perhaps more than ever, isn't it, as, as we're, you know, one of the things that I recognise is, is potentially our role as BVA at the moment is supporting our members to think about how are, how are they just like the rest of society, but, forgive me, it's our BVA members who are most interested in looking at in that context. How, how, how are you going to come out of lockdown?

What's the, what's your, your route out of lockdown and recognising that there isn't a single right answer to that. There may be a couple of wrong answers to it, but there's no single right answer to it. And if we think about that in a sort of workplace context, recognising that, again, just as in the more general society, we'll have within a workplace, representatives of all different areas on that sort of risk appetite spectrum.

I hate talking about COVID in terms of risk appetite, but I haven't yet found a better terminology for it. Perhaps someone could come up with one, for us this evening. I'm recognising therefore that, you know, the changes that we want to make in terms of, you know, we're allowing clients into the consultant room now.

Are we seeing our students face to face now for practical assessments, so we, you know, whatever, whatever the workplace may be, that different people will have different views on how it's right to enact that. And we've, we've seen that generate perhaps more conflict between, members of practise than anything else, you know, in recent months in particular, you know, and, and you can see where it's coming from, the people who say, well, you know. They wouldn't have a client in the room with them, but they've been in a day a haircut, you know, and, and you can see where this comes from and where if we're not very careful about how we manage it, that we can end up with that becoming an argument within, within a, within a team, can't we?

And I think there's some, perhaps some tools in the good workplace guide, which are particularly pertinent at the moment in terms of, you know, leading whole team buy in to, to whatever the idea is that we're trying to get across. Yeah, it's moved the whole team forward. I think it has, as you said, we don't want to focus too much on COVID.

I think everyone's had enough of COVID, haven't they, but I've certainly had a lot of reports back from practises that have had some really kind of, I don't want to say vicious vicious attacks, but you know, the, the clients have been quite upfront and challenging and more than normal, particularly, you know, to, to anybody that they come into contact with, whether that's the vets in the car park or, you know, the receptionist over the phone, and they kind of, I think that the stress level on the practises has been more than usual. So, anything we could do to alleviate that really, isn't it? Quite agree, quite agree.

Yeah, and it is exactly that piece, isn't it about . You know, reinforcing those messages at any opportunity that, you know, our staff are doing everything they can to do everything for you. And I'm sure that our members tonight, I'm sure are engaging in, in those, in those messages.

Yes, absolutely. We've had some, a couple of messages just, just saying thank you for the great talk, James. So you've done a wonderful job stepping into Daniela's shoes at the last minute, and, no, it's, it's been brilliant to have you, so thank you so much for doing that.

And send us those links across, we'll get those all added in for you. So to everyone that has joined tonight. I just want to say thank you for giving us your time.

I hope you have enjoyed this as much as I have. Please do spend a couple of minutes, to do the survey that pops up at the end so that we know what you want to hear about next. The power is in your hands once again.

So, other than that, thanks to Steph, the controller who is in the backgrounds working away, . Make sure everything runs smoothly, so thank you very much to her and of course, thanks to MWI Animal Health for sponsoring the practise management series. And most importantly, last but not least, a big thank you again to you, James, for stepping in and giving us that wonderful, webinar tonight.

We really appreciate, you giving a short evening and all these wonderful insights. So thank you very much to everybody, and we'll see you again soon on the next webinar. Thank you guys.

Good night. Good night.