Thanks Karl - do you mind if I make a few suggestions which I think would make the site easier to use? (I'm going to anyway :lol
It's not meant as a criticism, more as something that would make it more useful for owners, and for rabbit/other small pet owners in particular
First, particularly in terms of rabbits, an excellent dog/cat vet isn't necessarily a very good rabbit vet. I know of some vets who I would rate very highly with cats but I wouldn't take my rabbits to. Vets learn virtually nothing about rabbit (and other small animal such as guinea pig, hamster etc) medicine/surgery at vet school so it relies on finding a vet who is competent with that particular species. For this reason I'd suggest that the site explains that a recommendation for a vet with one species (e.g. if someone recommends a vet as having been brilliant with their dog) it doesn't mean that they will be equally competent with other species. It's the same as the RCVS accreditation - the RCVS 'small animal' accreditation again really refers to cats and dogs, it doesn't mean that the practice is competent with all small animal species - as far as the RCVS is concerned rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters etc are all 'exotics' not small animals - crazy isn't it? There is one particular vet on the list which is RCVS small animal accredited and frankly if I was stood outside that practice with a dying rabbit (or any other animal for that matter), I would drive to another practice rather than step inside.
Generally speaking, I don't find the site very easy to navigate - the drop-down list of options isn't terribly intuitive (for instance if I lived in Edinburgh, I don't think I'd go looking for it under 'C' for 'City of Edinburgh) and there is such a long list it is really hard to find the nearest location. Even if it was broken down by England/Scotland etc if not to regions within that, it would be helpful. And when you do find the right place, all you get is an enormous alphabetical list, which isn't really very helpful when the geographic areas covered are so large (for instance 'greater london' covers both east and west so you could be talking a 1.5hr journey between vets on it). When I tried it via the postcode search, I did it for an address in Essex and the search gave me some practices in Tyne and Wear - couldn't really get any further away!
I guess my other general point is that lay people don't necessarily know what constitutes 'good' and 'bad' in terms of veterinary treatment. Just because an animal survives and recovers it doesn't automatically mean that the vet was brilliant. For instance quite often on here people say their vet is brilliant and then you hear what they did/didn't do, and I would disagree with their assessment
It could do of course, and such anecdotes are hugely helpful, but I would also suggest a word of caution and maybe a statement on the home page saying that these are just the experiences of individuals which may be helpful.
