In 30+years my family have only used the 1 Vets ~ Stanhope Park Veterinary Hospital in Darlington. They are wonderful.
The practice used to be owned by Andrew Geldard who was a lovely vet. His "apprentice" Micaela Wright took over the practice once he retired and she has really expanded the practice from strength to strength. They have a couple more smaller practices in nearby towns but the main practice in Darlington is a fully equipped 24 hour hospital, so mostly importantly no stupid emergency vets or waiting for blood/faecal results to come back as they can do them on-site.
She has put together a really strong team, with a number of exotic vets and nurses. You don't always get to see the same vets but you can request them if you choose too.
They are really reasonable on price as well, vaccinations are £25, George and Hershel's neuters cost £40-45 and Harry's spay was £50ish. Also they will claim directly from your pet insurance, so no need for us to pay first, which is a god send and the reason you have insurance.
To be honest I think my family (including my dogs) are all kinda in love with Micaela and probably worship the ground she walks on :lol: But she really cares and works herself really hard. Our Floss (border collie) has been diagnosed with IMHA (Immune Mediated Hemolytic Anemia) twice. The first time she took a few months of steroid treatment to get better, but the second twice last year was life or death and resulted in her having her spleen removed. One point when she wasn't getting better, she saw a specialist up in Cramlington, who was absolutely useless and only repeated the same tests as our vets did and charged about triple (approx £1000 in one day). But if it wasn't for the determination of Micaela and her team, we would have lost her. We feel so lucky to have such as wonderful vet only 5-10 minutes away.