Vet of year honour for Gilmore Vets worker

A delighted Wigan vet has said she is “absolutely honoured” to have won a national competition.

Potts Redmond, of Gilmore Vets, in Standish, said she was shocked to have won the Vet of the Year 2021 in their 22nd Veterinary Awards.

Known colloquially as the ‘Oscars’ of the veterinary world, the Petplan awards recognise the best of the best in five different categories.

Potts, who became clinical director at Gilmore Vets at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, was named as Vet of the Year in a virtual ceremony hosted by Marcus Brigstocke.

She had stiff competition in her category, with Petplan receiving more than 30,000 individual nominations from across the UK for the awards, with some 8,000 for the Vet of the Year category.

Potts, who joined the vets as a locum in November 2018, said: “This has been the strangest of years where I find myself snatched from the locum trail into the jaws of responsibility as a clinical director thanks to IR35 and Covid-19.

“We are working in ways I would never have imagined existed.

“Then I hear the stupefying news I’m in the final three for Petplan’s Vet of the Year.

“The surreal icing on the cake was to hear my name read out as the winner in a moment that was utterly overwhelming and remains so.

“Never before have pyjamas, out of date oven pizza and a small glass of red wine, seemed so inadequate and inappropriate.

“I genuinely didn’t expect to win.

“I’m very grateful to those that took the time to nominate me and put me in a limelight I would never seek.

“It’s an absolute honour to be deemed worthy of Vet of the Year and will remain a career highlight.”

Potts decided to pursue a career as a vet at the tender age of 10, when her cat was very ill,

She said: “Fluff (you’ll be surprised to learn she was fluffy) was euthanised; I felt the vet shied away from telling the family that Fluff needed putting to sleep and decided I wanted a career where I could do right by the animals, even when conversations were difficult.

“I graduated a long, long time ago in a far off galaxy (the RVC, it was a long way south) when paper records were still the mainstay of veterinary practice.”

Staff at Gilmore Vets said they were “unbelievably proud” of Potts for winning the coveted award.

They said: “With everything that she has brought to the practice over the last 12 months we think this was well deserved.”

Mr Brigstocke, who hosted the virtual ceremony, added: “This vet is smart, dedicated and delivers clinical excellence and truly deserves to be crowned Vet of the Year.”

The five categories in the awards were: Practice Support Staff of the Year, Practice Manager of the Year, Vet Nurse of the Year, Vet of the Year and Practice of the Year.

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