Langford Vets appoints first Veterinary Human Support Worker to work alongside its teams and clients
Langford Vets, a leading Veterinary Care provider and a subsidiary of the University of Bristol, is pleased to announce the appointment of Rhonda Hopkins as its first Veterinary Human Support Worker. This marks a significant milestone for Langford Vets and reinforces its commitment to supporting its clients and teams to deliver outstanding care, dedicated to learning.
Langford Vets appoints first Veterinary Human Support Worker to work alongside its teams and clients
Langford Vets, a leading Veterinary Care provider and a subsidiary of the University of Bristol, is pleased to announce the appointment of Rhonda Hopkins as its first Veterinary Human Support Worker. This marks a significant milestone for Langford Vets and reinforces its commitment to supporting its clients and teams to deliver outstanding care, dedicated to learning.
What makes this role so unique?
Veterinary Social Worker roles are already established in North America and Australia, and the value of onsite counselling in large veterinary settings has become recognised recently, but this is the first role of its kind in the UK, embedding clinical expertise, safeguarding and crisis management for both staff and clients across our veterinary practices.
What is the purpose of the role?
To provide in the moment and strategic support to both staff and clients managing the emotional load and complex decision making resulting from caring for our patients. This will allow us to deliver the best quality care to animals whilst taking the best care of our people.
Rhonda will be embedded in our multidisciplinary small animal referral hospital and first opinion small animal clinic at Langford and will also be available when needed to support our teams in our farm animal and equine practices. Her skills and experience will be invaluable in helping clients navigate difficult decisions and end of life care whilst supporting our teams to manage the emotional load that comes from their roles in delivering clinical care.
Why does Rhonda’s experience make her the best person for the job?
Rhonda has extensive experience which combines advanced clinical expertise with strong leadership and emotional intelligence. With 28 years in high-acuity healthcare, including 10 years in Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS), Rhonda brings proven decision-making, resilience, and the ability to manage complex, sensitive situations.
Her expertise in trauma-informed practice, safeguarding, and crisis intervention enables her to create safe, accountable environments, while her longstanding personal commitment to animal welfare reflects both compassion and a deep understanding of the human–animal bond
Veterinary care doesn't just involve clinical decisions - it involves people navigating some of the most difficult moments with the animals they love. This role brings dedicated emotional and psychological support into practice, helping both clients and teams manage those challenges. By supporting our people, we strengthen the care we provide to every patient.
I feel very privileged to be working towards establishing this groundbreaking role here at Langford.
As the range of clinical care options available in veterinary practice grows, it can become challenging to navigate the best contextualised care for each patient. This can be difficult for clients, and the veterinary team. By providing empathetic support for everyone involved, we hope to create the very best environment for our patients, the highest standards of animal welfare, and care for our people.
We are excited to have Rhonda joining the Langford Vets team to provide such important support to our teams and clients. As a clinical educator, as well as a provider of outstanding clinical care across the full spectrum, we hope this will enable us to train others in the future to help develop a network of professionals equipped to work alongside clinical and client support teams across the veterinary sector.