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Nominations open for SPVS Business Excellence Awards 2025
Last year's overall winner, and the best Veterinary start-up, was The Manchester Cat Clinic.

The awards recognise vet practices across three categories.

The Society of Practising Veterinary Surgeons (SPVS) has opened nominations for this year’s Veterinary Business Excellence Awards.

Veterinary practices are invited to nominate themselves in one of three categories: Leadership & Management Skills, Team & Self Development, and Veterinary start ups.

The ‘Leadership & Management Skills’ category celebrates practices with visionary leadership, strategic planning, and resource management. Practices must be able to demonstrate how leadership skills have led to innovative development.

The ‘Team & Self Development’ category will recognise a practice with a strong and supportive culture. The winning practice will showcase excellent morale, collaborative team-working and effective communication.

Finally, for practices which started in the last 2.5 years, there is the ‘Veterinary start ups’ category. 

There are three key criteria for a winning start up: understanding of business finance, positive workplace culture and a demonstrably high level of care.

Practices can nominate themselves via an online form, but can only submit an application in one category. Their nomination should explain why they meet the winning criteria for their category, and should share how SPVS has supported their practice to grow.

Nominations will close at 5pm on 17th October 2025.

The SPVS Board will review submissions and select the top five nominated veterinary practices in each category. Each of these practices will be awarded a book of their choice from 5M Books.

The five nominated practices in each category will then be asked to submit a 90 second video that showcases their accomplishments. A panel of veterinary influencers, as well as the SPVS president and junior vice president, will evaluate the final submissions and vote for a winner in each category.

The category winners will be announced at the end of December 2025, with the overall winner revealed at the SPVS Congress opening ceremony in February 2026.

Last year’s overall winner was The Manchester Cat Clinic, which was also the winner of the ‘Veterinary start ups’ category.

Daniel Lee, director and veterinary surgeon of Manchester Cat Clinic, said: “We entered SPVS Business Excellence Awards to celebrate our team’s hard work and our unique approach to feline care.

“The process gave us fresh insights into our business, encouraged reflection on our growth and connected us with like-minded practices striving for excellence.”

Nominations can be submitted on the SPVS website.

Image used with permission from SPVS.

Copyright (C) J Duckworth

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Defra shares new Sanitary and Phytosanitary guidance

News Story 1
 Defra has published guidance for the vet sector ahead of a proposed UK-EU Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreement.

The agreement, which will change the movement and trade of animals and related products, could see reductions in checks, paperwork and certification. As well as describing regulatory developments, the advice highlights the importance of animal ID, registration and traceability in disease control and other compliance arrangements.

The guidance can be found here. More detail is expected as negotiations progress. 

Click here for more...
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