Independent Vetcare Ltd surprised five of its practices earlier this month with cheques for £4,000 each.

In conjunction with Bayer Animal Health, the company had been running a practice competition to drive penetration rates of their Pet Health Club – a preventative healthcare scheme.

Participating practices were spit into 4 categories based on their Pet Health Club penetration rate at the start of the competition, with the winning practices increasing penetration rates between 14% – 26% from July to December 2015. On top of this there was also a fifth prize on offer to the practice that decreased their cancellation rate by the most, during the same period, bringing the total prize fund to £20,000, thanks to the support of key supplier Bayer Animal Health.

The winning practices were surprised with the news and a cheque for their share of the prize fund by their IVC Business Support Manager and local Bayer territory manager, before the news was released to the network of Independent Vetcare practices across the England, Wales and Scotland.

True to the diversity of the practices that make up Independent Vetcare, the winning practices varied in size, geographic locations and client base demographics, demonstrating the wide appeal of preventative healthcare schemes across the UK pet market.

And the winners are:

• Well House Vets, a small two vet practice in East Sussex
• New Malden Vets (pictured above), large single site practice with a team of eight vets, in Surrey (who actually chose to share their winnings with the runner up practice in this category Linc Vets as they were so close)
• Northdale Vets (pictured below), Lancing branch which is the smallest of Northdales’ three sites in West Sussex
• Cater Veterinary’s Craig-y-Don Surgery which is the main branch of this two site group, which houses four vets whose special interests include acupuncture, dentistry and soft tissue surgery, in addition to GP treatment for their clients in Llandudno
• The Rowe Veterinary Group’s, Bradley Stoke Hospital in Bristol, a main referral centre for the area as well as offering GP services

As is the IVC culture of locally run practices, the teams now just have to decide how to spend their winnings as they have full authority to use it in any way they see fit, from investing in new equipment, sprucing up staff facilities or simply dividing amongst the staff.