Let's Talk Adjustments

Abi Judd-English (00:23)

Hi everyone and welcome to the January episode of the RCVS podcast where we give you the lowdown on everything that's going on across the College, explaining why we do what we do, how we do it and how we can all work together as we continue to support the advancement of the veterinary professions.

I'm Abi Judd-English, a member of the RCVS Communications Team, and today we're going to be talking all things reasonable adjustments. Today's conversations will act as a roundup for our recent Let's Talk Adjustments campaign, launched last year to empower everyone, regardless of role, disability or health condition, to have open and important conversations about the benefits workplace adjustments can bring, not just to individuals, but to entire veterinary teams.

My comms colleague, Luke Bishop, will be having a scene setting conversation with Diversity and Inclusion Senior Officer Lloyd Emeka, who worked closely on the campaign, providing an introduction to what reasonable adjustments are, the laws surrounding them, and why the campaign was needed. For our main feature, we will be joined by Director for the Advancement of the Professions, Angharad Belcher, and Jenny Seward, a small animal vet and clinical practice director who was diagnosed with fibromyalgia 15 years ago. Angharad and Jenny will be talking about the importance of reasonable adjustments in the workplace, including Jenny's personal experiences, how to approach reasonable adjustments from a leadership position, and the importance of opening up conversations.

But before that, we have our usual news round up - filling you in on important college-wide news that you might have missed.

News round up

Abi Judd-English (02:09)

We've started this year the only way we know how: packed full of projects with lots of exciting developments either already underway or very much on the horizon.

Just this week, it has been confirmed that DEFRA has officially launched a consultation for a new Veterinary Surgeons Act. As many of you will be aware, this has been a long time coming as the current Act dates back to 1966. We would therefore strongly urge you to have your say on these proposed reforms and get your voices heard.

This is potentially a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have your input and will not only alter the way we function as a regulator, but directly impact the future of the professions.

In other news, our mental health project, the Mind Matters Initiative, has launched its next round of veterinary mental health research grants, open to mental health researchers at all career stages.

The revamped grants programme, launched in August 2024, aims to drive change that will positively impact mental health in the veterinary sector and offers two types of grants. The first is a £5,000 discovery grant, targeted at postgraduate or early career researchers looking to kickstart small-scale studies. The second is a £15,000 impact grant, aimed at more established researchers working on more substantial, medium-sized projects.

Further information on the grants and how to apply can be found in the applicant guide on the MMI website, the details for which are in the show notes. The deadline for applications is Sunday 22nd March, 2026.

Over in veterinary nursing, following a consultation with the professions last year, we have now published an updated framework governing the development and delivery of the Certificate in Advanced Veterinary Nursing, CertAVN, by veterinary nursing educators. Reviewed every five years, the updated framework includes a new standard focusing on developing a positive learning culture, recognising the need for those providing the CertAVN to foster inclusive, reflective and student-centred learning environments.

The new standard also strengthens our expectations around academic support for students, principally how the qualification should advance knowledge and the fact that institutions should always take student wellbeing into account.

For more on these stories and more, please visit the news and views page on our website.

The link to which is in the show notes.

An introduction to reasonable adjustments

Luke Bishop (04:35)

Hi there, this is Luke Bishop, RCVS Media and Publications Manager. Joined today by Lloyd Emeka. I'll let you introduce yourself, Lloyd.

Lloyd Emeka (04:42)

Hi, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Lloyd Emeka here. I am the Senior Officer, Diversity and Inclusion at the RCVS.

Luke Bishop (04:50)

Brilliant. And we're here to talk about the reasonable adjustments campaign, which wrapped up at the end of last year. So just to kick us off really, I just wondered if you could give a bit of a broad explanation about reasonable adjustments and I guess the kind of legal framework behind them.

Lloyd Emeka (05:06)

Sure, absolutely. So reasonable adjustments are changes that an employer makes to remove or reduce a disadvantage related to an employee's disability. And disability, of course, can be many different things. It can be related to neurodivergency. It can be related to mental health. It can be related to physical health as well. And it's a requirement under the Equality Act 2010 and also the Disability Discrimination Act in Northern Ireland as well.

Luke Bishop (05:35)

Brilliant. Kind of looking at, I guess, at the kind of genesis of the campaign. So there was this research in 2024 with the British Veterinary Chronic Illness Support group which I understand kind of represents veterinary surgeons with physical and other disabilities. Could you kind of talk us through that research and what the conclusions were and I guess how the campaign then grew out of that?

Lloyd Emeka (05:56)

Yeah, absolutely. So findings from that research that you referred to highlighted that actually there are a high percentage of survey respondents. So that's people who completed the survey, who had at least one disability or chronic illness. And many of those respondents, 36%, to be precise, had experienced barriers in accessing support. And so what the findings of that research really pointed out to us as that there was a need to delve deeper into that and to really try to understand actually why are there barriers, but also thinking from a broader perspective of reasonable adjustments and what does that actually mean. We also realised fairly quickly that actually whilst there were lots of examples of reasonable adjustments campaigns in other professions, so non-veterinary professions, there wasn't really anything that had been done from a veterinary perspective. And so based on that, we then felt that actually what we needed to do was to raise awareness of reasonable adjustments and to really try and kickstart the conversation about what needs to be done to support professionals who need reasonable adjustments in the workplace, but also to equip managers with the ability to have those conversations with staff in the workplace who might be in need of reasonable adjustments.

Luke Bishop (07:23)

And so what kind of, of aims did we set out when we launched the campaign? Was it to, like you say, kind of encourage those conversations and encourage, I suppose, greater awareness as well, especially legislation?

Lloyd Emeka (07:34)

Yeah, absolutely. So the campaign was really designed to help start important conversations about disability and reasonable adjustments in the workplace. And within that campaign, we started off with an initial awareness phase, as you would generally tend to do with quite a lot of campaigns. And so we started off doing that first. And then the next phase of the campaign after the initial awareness building activity, was more focused around the education and that was where we then started to introduce different resources. We had the webinar panel discussion, which I'm sure we'll talk about a bit later on and all of those sorts of things.

Luke Bishop (08:13)

I understand that the campaign was quite reliant on the personal testimony of vets and VNs and their personal experiences of reasonable adjustments or perhaps even lack of reasonable adjustments. Could you tell me a bit about how came to get various members of the professions involved?

Lloyd Emeka (08:30)

Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing we did actually was that we created a survey which was sent out to veterinary professionals and we essentially asked them if they wanted to get involved in the campaign. And that could be, for example, writing blogs or writing case studies, so giving testimonies, or it could be other areas of the campaign. We then went through a process following on from that where we identified and essentially created a short list of appropriate individuals that we could approach who had given their consent for us to, follow up with them. And then we began to actually co-create content with them. And that is what led to the real stories and insights part of the campaign a series of written blogs by veterinary surgeons, veterinary nurses, who either talked about their own direct experiences of getting reasonable adjustments in the workplace or talking about it from the perspective of being a manager and providing support to staff who were in need of reasonable adjustments in the workplace.

Luke Bishop (09:43)

I think that's very important, isn't it, to have essentially both sides of coin there. So you're not just talking about it from the person that wants reasonable adjustments, you're also talking to people that have accommodated those as well. So yeah, we get both perspectives in one. Having brought everyone together to talk about the personal experiences, and I think you mentioned a webinar before. What do you kind of feel that the impact of the campaign was? Because it ran over a number of months, didn't it?

Lloyd Emeka (10:05)

Yes, it did. So it actually ran over six months. And the impact really was a sort of slow build. But based on the feedback that we do have, I can give you some tangible examples. For the webinar panel discussion that we hosted, we had 169 attendees. Feedback from those attendees was generally positive. And what was even better was that actually for a lot of those attendees, there were tangible actions that they were going to take away from the webinar event in terms of either things that they would look to introduce into their practice, into their workplace environment, or even just conversations that they felt more comfortable having as a result of attending the webinar. Building on that as well, we also had a guide that was created about how to have conversations about reasonable adjustments in the workplace. We have had over 1600 downloads so far. And clearly that would suggest there is a need for information. It would also suggest as well that veterinary professionals have been engaging with the content that we've created for this campaign on an ongoing basis and I think it really kind of validates the whole point in terms of why we wanted to run this campaign in the first instance.

Luke Bishop (11:35)

Absolutely. I was thinking, even if just 10% of the people that downloaded the document kind of went away and had those conversations or institutions change in their workplace, that is job well done really. The fact that those conversations have resulted from our work. I guess, taking a look back at it several months after the event, what kind of learning points would you take from the campaign and its reception.

Lloyd Emeka (11:57)

I think one of the learnings is that culturally perhaps veterinary professionals have been a bit reluctant to ask for reasonable adjustments, or haven't felt that they've had the scope, to ask for it.

And so simply just making people aware that actually it's their right to ask for reasonable adjustments if they need it from literally day one of employment was demystifying for some people because they were not aware of that. And then also just through the feedback that we've had, I would say that there's a lot more that can still be done in the sense that, yes, we have helped to raise awareness levels of what reasonable adjustment is and how you can go about asking for it or supporting people in the workplace, but actually it's an ongoing process. And so really now it's kind of up to individuals, everyone involved, to keep pushing forwards and try to embrace the knowledge that's out there.

Luke Bishop (12:55)

Absolutely, I was going to ask actually just as a kind of concluding question, what are the next steps in this area? Do we have any concrete plans yet? Are kind of evaluating the campaign?

Lloyd Emeka (13:06)

Yeah, so there's two things really. So the first one is that we are currently in the process of developing a tailored adjustment passport, sometimes referred to as a health passport. And this will essentially be a toolkit that anyone will be able to download. It's free of charge, and people can use that toolkit and adapt it for their own purposes.

And so if say, for example, they wanted to complete, the template that's in the toolkit and they wanted to take that with them to their organisation or future employers, they can do that. So that's something that we're working on and should be released later on this year. And then the other point is that yes, we are evaluating the impact of the campaign right now. I don't have any immediate results to share but later on in the year, we will have some more kind of concrete data.

Luke Bishop (13:58)

The passports sound like an excellent idea because again I think it will add that kind of structure into the potential conversations that people could have in the workplace about their needs and what adjustments can be made. So it sounds like a very worthy and interesting thing to get off the ground.

Lloyd Emeka (14:15)

Yeah, absolutely. And I think the other point as well is that, there will be some people who are working for organisations who already have their own tailored adjustment passport or health passport, but there are also going to be some people who don't have access to one. And so it's our hope that, for those people who maybe are looking for, a template that is veterinary specific, that they'll be able to use it, adapt it as and where they see fit. And ultimately that should hopefully be beneficial to the wider profession.

Luke Bishop (14:47)

Brilliant, well, it all sounds like excellent work, Lloyd. So thank you very much for your time and yeah, look forward to seeing what the project produces next.

Lloyd Emeka (14:54)

Thank you Luke.

Main feature

Angharad Belcher (15:11)

Hello everybody, we are talking about reasonable adjustments on the podcast. I have with me one of the vets that we've done a good amount of work with this year. So Jenny, welcome Would you like to introduce yourself, please?

Jenny Seward (15:22)

Yes, I'm Jenny Seward - a small animal vet of about 18 odd years now. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia about 15 years ago, so went through working in a few different places with various adjustments needed for that. Then getting on for four years ago now, I stepped up as clinical director at the practice I'm at, and so now I'm on the other end of that trying to make sure we've got decent adjustments in place for people in the workplace.

Angharad Belcher (15:46)

Lovely, well thank you for joining us today. And for those of you who perhaps haven't heard much about reasonable adjustments, this is one of the final elements of a campaign that we've been running. So as part of the Advancement of Professions EDI work, we've had the Let's Talk Adjustments campaign. There's a whole number of resources available on the website. You'll see the link in the podcast bio, and that will give you some of the insights into the case studies, but also useful resources, both for managers and employees. So do check that out.

We might reference some of that during the conversation today. But thank you very much Jenny for giving up your time and being part of this. Looking forward to what we will cover. So I guess to get started, thinking about your personal experience here, how did you start having these conversations? Because they're not easy, are they?

Jenny Seward (16:27)

No, I mean they're very much not. I mean I was sort of lucky I guess in a way. The first place I was working when the fibro first developed, my employer at the time, he'd seen my health decline, it was getting really quite bad at work.

At point I was kind of struggling to walk, couldn't hold a 500ml bottle of water because it was too heavy, all these sorts of things. So he was very aware that there were problems going on and he was incredibly open and receptive to what can I do to help.

For me, that first conversation at that point was really, really easy. We got on very well anyway, we had a good relationship and so it was a very simple conversation. He came to me to say, what do you need?

Since then obviously I've had that conversation a few times with employers over the years and I've always taken the approach of being really open and honest from the start about my condition, what I need at the time. Obviously the needs have changed with time. What I needed back then when I was first diagnosed is very different to the position I'm in now. And I think really being open is the best way to go. I've had varying success rates with conversations at times. The majority of them have very, very good, but a few experiences over the years that I think have come mainly from people not understanding what reasonable adjustments are and being unaware themselves as to what we can do really.

Angharad Belcher (17:43)

Yeah, from the Disability and Chronic Illness Survey results, a lot of the folk who filled it out who were in management roles or leaders of people, one of their biggest concerns was around getting it wrong and not having enough information and not having that conversation correctly. So as you say, I think there's a few bits that we can get to in this conversation about that.

Thinking about your personal experience, if it had been done any differently, any of those conversations, what would have been the things that would have been helpful to you?

Jenny Seward (18:09)

I think the main situation I can think of where things didn't go ideally, it was a case of the communication not happening. So it wasn't a case of my employer at the time not necessarily wanting to do anything. I think they were unaware of what was happening and they weren't open to having that conversation.

I think really sitting down, being open, discussing ideas is the vast majority of what you need to be doing with reasonable adjustments. Things aren't always going to be entirely possible, things aren't always going to be feasible, but being willing to sit down and have that conversation to really listen to what the person in front of you is saying that they need, what they think might help, and then having an open, honest conversation with them back about, well the problems we can see with this are X, Y and Z. Can we find a way through this that's going to benefit you, going to give you what you need, but it's going to be workable within the practice as well because obviously adjustments do need to work within a practice.

Angharad Belcher (18:57)

It sounds like you had from that first experience somebody who was very supportive and very helpful. One of the questions I think on a lot of people's minds are that when they're having those conversations that they just don't know what adjustments might be helpful. Did you have much of an insight into what you were looking for from that conversation or was it done a bit differently?

Jenny Seward (19:15)

That initial conversation, at the time I didn't know what I was going to need longer term but I knew the things I was struggling with in practice. I was having issues with fine motor functions, so even just drawing up vaccine syringes that was hurting. So I had a very easy conversation luckily with my manager. I was like, well, these are the things that I struggle with. And he's like, OK, that's fine. We'll put a nursing consult with you who can help with all these sorts of things. You're struggling with operating. That's fine. We can take you off the ops rota for now and let me know when you want to go back on it. I knew that at the time, disturbed sleep was a problem. And we did our own on-call. So he took me off the on-call rota for probably about a year or so.

It was quite simple with him but I didn't know what the answers were, I knew what the problems were. Luckily he was incredibly approachable, incredibly open and he was like, well look, these are the solutions I can think of straight off the top. Let's start with that, let things calm a bit and then we can revisit and rethink and work through as your symptoms settle.

Angharad Belcher (20:05)

That sounds quite pragmatic.

Jenny Seward (20:06)

Yeah I think it helped that he had some chronic pain issues himself and I think probably had that understanding of where he was coming from of just let's stop this worsening to start with and then see what you need as it comes.

Angharad Belcher (20:16)

Yeah, it's good to try and figure things out in different phases, I feel, with these sorts of issues that you can go, right, let's look at what's needed right now, but think about how things might progress, how things might change, and the different needs that you might have. So I guess that leads us on quite nicely into you stepping into you stepping into management roles and leading people.

Have you been able to become the manager that you wish you'd had as you now have that role?

Jenny Seward (20:39)

I hope that people would say that I have. It's always difficult to judge, isn't it? But yeah, I mean, think from what I've seen, the team are quite happy to come and chat, which I think is the big starter. They've been quite open about various issues that they've had over the years.

Most of them come with some idea as to what they think might help but obviously they don't always know what it might be. Obviously I don't always have all the answers and I think that's one of big important things is don't be afraid to say that you don't know the answers, there's plenty of help out there to help support through, and really letting people tell you what they need and actually listening to that you know. Yes I can go into a conversation, go into a meeting thinking okay they've got fibromyalgia like I had, what I needed was this. But they might have a very different set of symptoms. The practice we're working in is very different to the one I was working in when I first developed my problems. So what suited me at the time is not necessarily going to be what they need now. So yes, I can go in with ideas, but I need to stop and to listen to what they're struggling with, what are their problems, what ideas do they have as to how to overcome it.

Angharad Belcher (21:38)

I think from the webinar one of the conversation points that we had was around making sure that you give people notice that you want to have a bit of a conversation that needs privacy, needs time, etc. I remember that on the panel there was a moment about saying how far in advance of the meeting do you disclose? Do you say to your manager, I need to come and have a conversation with you and this is the topic so that you have time to prepare. Would you find that that would work for you in your current situation if somebody said I want to come and talk to you and this is the topic.

Jenny Seward (22:08)

Yeah I mean that definitely helps and I think in an ideal world that's probably how the conversations would happen would be to have a couple of days notice so you can go away and if you don't know much about the other person's condition you can do some research into it but equally I know some people would be more comfortable literally coming and having a brief in the moment conversation rather than something planned and set up because I know obviously if you've got anxiety problems or something like that knowing that the meeting is coming might be an issue and if that's the situation then there's absolutely nothing wrong with having a brief meeting to start with - get an idea of the overview and then maybe agree to come back together in a few days time and have a follow-on so it's very much what feels right for that person. But yeah, ideally, a bit of notice is definitely helpful.

Angharad Belcher (22:47)

Yeah, and then you can prepare and think about the staging because even if they give you the topic, what you might be expecting from it versus what they need or don't know that they need and the practice needs, then you've got to balance all of those elements, haven't you? So there's some good tips there.

One thing that you mentioned just then was that you might not have all the answers but that's sometimes quite hard if somebody's asking you for something that in theory might seem quite easy but you're managing a whole roster of people. How have you had to deal with that situation? Can you offer any insight into how to say, I don't know?

Jenny Seward (23:17)

I think it's one that probably is, from the veterinary profession, get quite used to, you don't have the answers to everything. And it's knowing where to go away and look and not being afraid to say you don't know is the

part of it. So I think don't just give the blank, oh I don't know the answer to this. You need to make sure that whoever's come to speak to you knows that you're going to help them through it. Yes, we might not have the answers today, but we're going to talk to Occupational Health, we're going to talk to the Access to Work Scheme, we're going to see if we can get a report from your doctor if they're comfortable with you doing that as to what they might suggest would help support and what the problems are likely to be.

And so I think it's one that nobody is going to have all the answers to every condition because everybody has different symptoms from the same condition. And as I say, what was right for me 10 years ago is not what's right for me today. So there's always going to be that changing reflection.

Angharad Belcher (24:01)

That's a useful position, I think, to take that if you've got somebody coming to you who's sharing something deeply personal, being able to say to them, I will work on this with you, is really empowering to them and builds that trust to go, yes, we can have these conversations. Neither of us know 100 % about this, but we'll work on it together to find a solution. That's, a really positive thing to be able to showcase to other team members going, we can work on this and we are open and we will find solutions that work.

Jenny Seward (24:29)

It's equally knowing that you don't have to get things completely right the first time so there's nothing to say that you can't put adjustments in place and review them in a couple of weeks or a month or two and then say well look what's working what's helping what's not is there something that we've missed and isn't quite hitting what we needed to do we need to change things has your condition changed at all has it got better has it worsened, what can we adapt to, so making people aware that whatever adjustments you come up with aren't the be all and end all, not the final position, it's something that is going to be ever changing and we can adjust as we need to do so.

Angharad Belcher (25:01)

One of the questions that will absolutely come in on top of this on whatever webinar or podcast we're doing where we're discussing this is the concept of fairness. So I don't know if you have any insight where you perhaps are balancing needs across the team where lots of people are asking things. Some people perhaps might have wanted to keep those adjustments quite confidential. Others might be much more open about it. Then you've got other people who haven't asked for anything but are still going, people are getting different shift patterns or not doing out of hours and that's not fair. Have you got any advice for managers who might be facing that situation?

Jenny Seward (25:31)

It can certainly be difficult, absolutely. I mean it's easier if the person asking for the adjustments is happy to be open with their colleagues because at least then everyone else can understand the reasons behind adjustments that are being put into place. It does become a lot more tricky if they don't want other people to know what's happening because that tends to be when you get the, well that's not fair and you have to just ask people to accept it without giving them a reason which is difficult. And obviously there are situations where adjustments for one person are going to impact adjustments for somebody else as well and so it's trying to find that balancing act.

We work quite a bit and we do quite a few referrals to occupational health. And I know that some people feel like there's almost a stigma around that, that being sent to an occupational therapist is a negative thing, but actually it's been a really, really positive thing in our experience. Very often they'll come back with ideas that neither us or the person involved have thought of and suggestions as to other things to try. And the same with access to work come up with things that, know, Occi Health haven't thought about and we haven't. So leaning on all those different things and explaining the challenges in the practice is really helpful. I know certainly with our occupational health referrals we can send in specific questions we have. If there's an adjustment that somebody's asked for that just isn't practical in the practice environment, you could go to Occi Health and say ideally we'd look at this but we can't do it because of XY and Z. Have you got any other ideas as to how we can manage that?

And generally speaking, they've been really, really helpful with it.

Angharad Belcher (26:51)

And just building on that, do you find that working with any of the occupational therapists that they have an understanding of veterinary work because one of the questions that we often get is, they just won't understand what we do as vets or nurses. Do you find that that's true or do you think that they can be helpful still?

Jenny Seward (27:07)

I think they definitely can because veterinary has its own unique challenges absolutely but there's a lot of parallels with kind of the medical professions and those sorts of things and it's one that there's nothing to stop you and if they've come back with a suggestion that you look at it and well that's just not feasible there's nothing to stop you going back again and saying well this is the situation, is why this isn't going to work, can we have a bit more of a conversation about how we can look at this in the veterinary world.

But generally speaking, be honest, most of the answers we've had back from them, most of the suggestions have been really quite veterinary friendly, which is lovely.

Angharad Belcher (27:38)

Absolutely and to have that other voice in the room that is able to go well here's a variety of options, different solutions that other people have tried and just giving you even if it's just inspiration of what to try if the idea itself isn't quite the right one.

You've mentioned Access to Work as well. That's probably a good thing to signpost people towards, that is available for any employees to go out to. You can find more information on the .gov website. So if you're interested in learning a bit more, then there's some really good guides that will take you through that. And for the employers as well, there are also employer guides as to cost recovery and how the process works etc.

But between that and occupational health there are some excellent resources out there and you'll find more information on the RCVS pages for the reasonable adjustments campaign. So if you're looking to find that information please do go and take a look.

We've covered quite a few different elements here. I think the one theme that I'm getting from this and from all the conversations that we've had is it's centred so strongly on communication, doesn't it?

Jenny Seward (28:40)

Yeah, very much so. Being able to have that open, safe communication in a non-judgmental way and being able to just properly listen to what's being said to you is the huge part of it.

Angharad Belcher (28:51)

Yeah, and that these conversations don't always go right first time do they? And not that they go wrong, but they might not get you what you need or they might not work for everybody and it's a process isn't it?

Jenny Seward (28:53)

No. That's it, there's no black and white answer, there's no go and look up a condition and it'll tell you exactly what you need, there's nothing like that because everything is different and every workplace is different so it's being open enough to try and to give things a go and then to revisit the conversations that you need to really.

Angharad Belcher (29:17)

Yeah, especially for those people who perhaps haven't been on the employee side of that conversation. They've not had to ask for anything. Sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone, don't you, as a manager and a leader, and do things that you might not be prepared for or might not be expecting, but giving it a go with honesty and creating that safety culture so that you can have these conversations and all the elements that you've highlighted of where you've benefited from supportive team members who've said, we might not know the answer, but we'll help. That's something I think that we all would want to have in the workplace, whatever our needs might be.

Thinking about wrapping this up now, because sadly we can't talk forever, but what would be your advice to anybody who is really worried about opening up and starting that conversation, but are struggling to have their needs met? What would be the one thing that you would say to them to encourage them to speak up?

Jenny Seward (30:05)

I think it's a conversation that once you start you'll be pleasantly surprised by the response too so I appreciate that it is hard if you're not used to talking about your disabilities or your health conditions, it can be really difficult to open up with that. But I think the vast majority of people out there, whether they're employers or not, have got some understanding of chronic illnesses, of disabilities.

And it may well be that they've spotted things going on that they just don't feel comfortable speaking to you about so there's a fair chance that your employer probably already has some idea that there's something going on and just doesn't feel that they can approach you either to speak about it. So I being open, it makes a massive difference. Having that conversation, I know it certainly was a big weight off my shoulders, of speaking to somebody about it, and it made all the difference to me. Without the adjustments, I don't know where I'd be. I don't know if I'd still be able to be a practicing vet.

So it made a huge, huge difference to me being able to get through that and while it was scary at the time and yes the adjustments at the time were huge, I'm now at position that I can operate, I can do the vast majority of things, I just have to be careful in terms of pacing. Where I'm at now is very different to where I was 15 years ago but without reasonable adjustments, yeah, who knows.

Angharad Belcher (31:09)

It's a difficult one to predict, isn't it? And that's a really, really good piece of advice for everybody to consider it's hard to open up, but if you don't start the conversation, you won't get the answers. So encouraging people to start those conversations, even if it's a small conversation before you're ready for the bigger one is something to consider. Thank you so much for being part of this and for sharing your story. Your case study is one that is hugely inspirational for people to consider how would I approach this, what can I learn from this, as are the other case studies and we're really grateful for everybody to be part of this and share their stories. All of the resources are available on the website so if you are interested please take a look at that including the new guide on Let's Talk Adjustments that gives people a bit more insight into the reasonable adjustments. So if you've got any other questions or queries please email us at [email protected] and we look forward to hearing from you and equally if this podcast has inspired you to perhaps have a conversation then do let us know. We'd love to hear from you and perhaps consider a case study going forward. So thank you, Jenny.

Outro

Abi Judd-English (32:27)

So we've had some really interesting conversations today, which have definitely provided me with a lot of food for thought and hopefully you too. So I want to give a massive thank you to all of today's guests, but particularly to Jenny, just for being so open and honest. I have no doubt that by sharing your experiences, you will really have helped a lot of other people just to feel more confident in advocating for themselves, as well as helping to open up conversations in work life more generally. So thank you. And also thank you very much to obviously Luke and Lloyd and Angharad as well. The link to our Reasonable Adjustments campaign, Let Us Talk Adjustments, is linked in the show notes where you can find other personal stories and insights from some more fantastic professionals as well as lots of other useful resources including a guide on discussing reasonable adjustments at work.

As mentioned last time we also now have a WhatsApp channel where we'll be posting regular news updates the link to which is in the show notes.

And, as always, if you're a veterinary professional, remember that listening to this episode counts towards your CPD, so make sure that you record and reflect on the 1CPD app. Thank you very much for listening and I look forward to filling you in on more college news next time.