Helen Farrant

Helen started her nursing career in a small animal clinic, where she gained her first experience of running nurse consults, continuing to develop this skill set in a variety of practices, including mixed and companion animal hospitals. She then moved into education, working at a large college and subsequently becoming Training Manager and Head of Centre for Goddard Veterinary Group, a large group practice in London. In this role, Helen responsible for in-house CPD provision for the nursing and client care teams, and for running the Group’s College, teaching the Diploma in Veterinary Nursing, Veterinary Nursing Assistants and Functional Skills qualifications. Whilst working on setting up the group’s well pet plan with a nursing perspective, Helen took the opportunity to empower nurses to run consults and clinics and developed CPD with this purpose, supporting nurse utilisation and went on to use her dissertation to research nurse involvement in well pet plans, which highlighted that consulting was an area in which many nurses felt they needed additional training and support.

Helen joined Linnaeus in 2021 as Lead Professional Development Manager and this role has allowed her to develop further CPD for consulting nurses, including running clinics in specific areas such as for diabetic patients and oral care. She is a passionate advocate of the veterinary nursing role and particularly enjoys supporting career development to ensure that nurses can utilise their full skill set and enjoy a fulfilling and long-term career in veterinary nursing. Helen is also an examiner, an education consultant, and on the Editorial Board of the VNJ, and she is currently completing an MBA in Clinical Leadership.