Our dedicated team of farm vets are committed to providing a high level of veterinary care for farmers across North Yorkshire.
Phil's interests involve all aspects of cattle work in particular herd health management, nutrition and lameness control. As a founding director of RAFT Solutions, Phil is principally interested in livestock skills development and is very active in farm training initiatives and knowledge exchange. This training interest led to the establishment of the national ‘FarmSkills’ programme delivered by XLVets in the UK.
Phil has provided technical input for a variety of industry bodies including pharmaceutical companies, milk recording organisations, milk and meat processors, feed companies and the AHDB and has contributed across a wide range of the farming press. He holds the RCVS Certificate in Cattle Health and Reproduction, a Diploma in Ruminant nutrition from Harper Adams University College and is a licenced Category 1 foot trimmer.
BVSc DBR NSch MRCVS
Neil joined Bishopton Veterinary Group in July 2007 after graduating from Liverpool University. An upbringing on a dairy and sheep farm in Lancashire played a large role in him deciding to specialise in farm animal work.
Mark was born and bred in North Yorkshire, growing up on a mixed livestock/arable farm. He qualified from Liverpool Vet School in 2006 and joined Bishopton straight from university having seen practice there. After 3 years in practice at Bishopton Mark spent a year in New Zealand to widen his knowledge and experience of block calving and grass-based systems. Mark returned to Bishopton following his time in New Zealand and became a partner in 2018. Mark's main interests lie in herd health and cattle reproduction. He is advanced breeding director for RAFT Solutions Ltd, performing embryo work, bull fertility assessments and semen collections. He leads the SemenRate laboratory at RAFT, and was awarded a Master in Veterinary Medicine (MVM) for work looking at AI in cattle and objective semen analysis.
Katharine was brought up in Ayrshire prior to attending Glasgow University Veterinary School. Following graduation in 2008, Katharine spent two years working in rural mixed practice in Dumfries and Galloway before making the move south of the border to focus on farm animal practice here at Bishopton. Katharine has achieved the RCVS Certificate in Advanced Veterinary Practice (Cattle).
Katie ‘Fitz’ graduated from Nottingham Vet School in 2012 and joined the team at Bishopton. After a three year stint at the practice she got itchy feet and took some opportunities to gain different experiences through time in farm practice in Lancashire, Derbyshire and back at the University of Nottingham teaching final year vet students. The call of God’s own country was too strong and Katie returned to Bishopton in 2020. Katies main interests are calf health, cattle housing and mastitis and her time in the peak district has given her a real appreaction of working with beef and sheep enterprises.
Leanne is York born and bred, then headed off to Liverpool vet school where she graduated in 2012. After graduating, Leanne headed up to North Yorkshire for just over two years to work in mixed practice. However, it became clear to her that farm animal practice was where her true passion lies. Leanne has been at Bishopton Veterinary Group since December 2014 and splits her time between the York and Ripon areas. Leanne's main interests are in all things beef and sheep and she plays an active role in delivering our beef and flock health planning services. Another area of Leanne's focus is delivering our pathology service. She has always been keen to post mortem fallen stock, but since her summer secondment to APHA Thirsk as a veterinary investigation officer in 2017, Leanne has pushed forward to emphasise the importance of post mortem examinations for herd and flock health. Leanne is AMTRA trained to run some of our RAFT farmer training workshops. However, there is nothing that makes Leanne happier than calving a cow or lambing a sheep!
Graham joined Bishopton farm team after 8 years in farm practice, three of them in Colne Lancashire then a five year stint in Teesdale. Prior to this, Graham qualified from the University of Liverpool in 2009, after funding his studies by working on the university’s dairy farm. Graham’s interests in practice lie in dairy fertility and sheep flock health.
I grew up in Lancashire spending much of my time on my grandparent's beef and sheep farm. As such my interest within veterinary medicine has always been geared towards becoming a farm vet. I graduated from the RVC in 2020 where I also inter-calated in Comparative Pathology. I look forward to being involved in all aspects of farm animal practice and I’m excited to join the team!
Originally from France, Anne-Sophie graduated in 2016 in Lyon, and worked as a farm vet in the East part of France doing beef and dairy cattle work. She then went abroad in various parts of the world (Cambodia, Comoros Union (archipelago near Madagascar), Kenya...) conducting research projects and pursuing her interest in livestock health in developing countries. She has a particular interest in epidemiology and infectious diseases.
Anne-Sophie currently works part-time, with her time split between Bishopton Vets and RAFT Solutions. Alongside this she is continuing her PhD at Edinburgh Uni in disease modelling, working initially on livestock disease, but since March 2020 this has included work on COVID-19 in Scotland.