Healthy feet programme - being in it to win it

The Healthy Feet Programme works to reduce lameness and it gives a return on investment. However, at least initially, that isn’t going to get many farmers phoning you up asking for your help in reducing their lameness. If only life were that simple!

No-one claims that starting out selling your services as a Mobility Mentor is easy initially. Learning from other Mobility Mentors can help. There are many examples of how practices have successfully incorporated the Healthy Feet Programme into their work, but all have had to start somewhere. And let’s face it, the potential is enormous.

Here are a few more ideas which have helped MMs deliver the Healthy Feet Programme successfully and help their clients reduce lameness: 

1. Use your practice newsletter. Promote yourself as the practice lameness expert. Let everyone know your interest, that you are a Mobility Mentor and that you have had further training in this area. When you have successes, celebrate them and spread the news.
2. Engage your colleagues. Let other vets and staff in the practice know you are looking for new Healthy Feet farms. Explain to them what you are able to offer. All you require from them is a bit of promotion and the farm leads - you will do the rest. 
3. Start a Healthy Feet discussion group. After your first farm, you have the basis of a discussion group. You can invite farmers, with or without a small charge, and do a farm walk to discuss what you have done and what the plan is about. This can be very motivating for the HFP farm as well as show-casing your work. Good ideas are contagious! (see Fig 1). All or some of the farmers may wish to benchmark themselves: and your independent mobility scoring service suddenly takes off. Mobility scoring is the logical beginnings for more farms doing the HFP. Keep group sizes small (6 farms is good). 
4. Consider a monthly fee or contract. There are many different ways you can charge for your time. A large one-off lump sum is likely to be unpalatable to many farmers. It may be simplest to spread the work over a few months and charge your time just as you normally would for other types of work. This way, the additional fee on the vets bill is unlikely to be very significant for any individual month. Conversely, other practices charge a monthly contract fee, say £150, to cover the periodic mobility scoring and all vet time on the HFP. This spreads the cost over a whole year. Sometimes, the Healthy Feet Programme is part of a full annual foot care package which includes regular mobility scoring and foot trimming, as well as support from a Mobility Mentor.

Figure 1. Good ideas can be contagious: this nice new shed has lovely clean, dry floors thanks to the incorporation of a central slatted channel to accompany the automatic scrapers. This was an idea which the farmer took from visiting another farm and being impressed with how clean his cows
were.

Please keep your ideas coming! You can email your own top tips to healthyfeet@ahdb.org.uk.