A & E's for animals....

Some good news - I thought it would be nice to put something positive on the forum. :lol:

I mentioned his in a previous post and promised that I would get back with some proper info on it. My vets have been advertising something called "Vets-Now" for a while. I don't know how many people are familiar with it's concept, but it is basically an out of hours A and E for all animals. They only have a few centres across the UK at the moment, but there are plans to open more.

I personally think it's a great idea, you don't have to feel bad about waking your vet up or disturbing them at a Weekend, and all the staff are fully trained and are there to work those shifts so you don't have to worry about them being tired or worse for wear!

The following is a link to their website:

http://www.vets-now.com/perl/vetsnow.Index.pl

I find it re-assuring knowing that if I ever have an emergency, there is someone I cna turn to without feeling bad about disturbing my vet.

What does everyone else think?

Our vet practice contracted out their out of hours emergency coverage. There is one practice that now does out of hours care for several vets in the area. Unfortunately that means in an emergency it's a 40-50 minute trip to get to the vet rather than 5-10 minutes. Not great in an emergency.

Tam

I can understand that, so will they not see you at all at your usual vets in an out of hours emergency? Our practise will still do home visits, as it's not always possible to travel somewhere as we all know. I was in a situation around a year ago where my bunny was poorly on a Sunday, and I found it so hard to make the decision as to whether he was poorly enough to disturb a vet on their day off or to wait till first thing Monday, it was a horrible experience to go through. If there had been a place like this near me then that I could have just called for advice knowing the were open for business as such, it would have put my mind at ease.

But I do think it's a bad idea if practises then refuse to do out of hours emergency calls just becasue they've signed up to something like this, and if my vets did actually stop this, then I wouldn't be thinking it was so great even if it's only 20mins away for me. :?

nice to hear what people think though, especially as there are quite often posts on here where people have needed to get their bun to an emergency vet and sometimes had less than useful help or advice

Nope, out of normal hours their telephone number automatically directs to the other practice. When is clever but also irritating as you can't catch them 10 minutes after they close even if you know they'd still be there. I guess it's handy that you can call for advice without waking someone but it's just the long trip if an animal is really ill isn't ideal.

I used my normal vet out of hours once before they switched when a rat opened up her stitches after an op. We met the vet there 15 minutes after we called and the vet stitched her up again. It was nice to see our own vet and much cheaper too.

This vet we only see in an emergency and it's still an automatic out of hours charge to see them even though they are there all the time anyway. It cost me £100 to have a rat put to sleep on a Saturday afternoon (it was a bank holiday so otherwise it would have been a three day wait) and she had to go through a 40 minute car journey to get there.

Tam

Whilst it is nice to know that there is someone already up and you don't feel so bad about disturbing that person in the middle of the night.

My concern is that most times when you want someone from an out of hours service it is often more important that they are knowledgeable about bunnies. If you use your own practice who have say 4 vets at least you have a 1:4 chance of getting the vet you normally use.

If you go to an Animal A&E you probably won't know any of the vets who work there, you will have to drive a lot further and the chance that they are rabbit specialists will be remote as someone who wants to specialise in rabbits is more than likely to get a permanent post in a practice so they can set themselves up doing what they want. Until these services get going the type of vets which it will attract is not known, it may be newly qualified vets who have not had too much experience or end up being manded by locum vets, we will have to wait and see on that one.

Tamsin said:

Nope, out of normal hours their telephone number automatically directs to the other practice.
This vet we only see in an emergency and it's still an automatic out of hours charge to see them even though they are there all the time anyway. It cost me £100 to have a rat put to sleep on a Saturday afternoon (it was a bank holiday so otherwise it would have been a three day wait) and she had to go through a 40 minute car journey to get there.

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Our vet has a very similar set up, but the emergency practice is 30 minutes max from any of the practices it covers for, and only about 10 minutes from some of them. They way they put it to me that totally makes sense - if you had to call your own vet, get them out of bed, and get them down to the practice and set up ready, it would probably take longer to get seen than driving to somewhere which already has staff ready and waiting.

I know the charges at such places can be expensive, but I guess they have to be in order to make it possible for the staff to be there ready to help 24/7.

After seeing Athena's injury on Monday night I weighed up my possible actions - the local vets I had just had a bad experience with when I took my dog in Saturday so I was loathed to call them and I judged her condition to not be immediately life threatening so chose to drive to Andover instead and see my usual rabbit vet.

So about 715pm I called my usual vets emergency number and the on-call vet was one of the partners. As I live 45 min away from them anyway, by the time I got there he was able to finish his dinner and meet me at the surgery so I didn't worry about disturbing him.

Although he isn't one of the rabbit specialists he was able to asses her and give her some antibiotics and painkillers to keep her comfortable overnight so the specialist could see her in the morning. I must admit I left nervously worrying that maybe he hadn't put any food/hay in with them overnight, that he may have given unsafe antibiotics but I was far more comfortable leaving her there knowing my vet would be able to see her the next day, otherwise I would have had to pick her up from my local and drive her to my usual vets the next morning as I just don't trust my local vets - also meaning time off work.

The next day however my usual vet wasn't in so the other rabbit specialist treated Athena, I don't have as much confidence in her as I do my usual vet however I would rather have her treat them than a vet I didn't know at all or one that had limited rabbit knowledge.

I am planning on moving my dog to a different vets, there is a new practice opened in my area and I rang them the other day to find out their opening hours. They are part of a local chain and their emergency service is 20 minutes away at their main animal hospital (as opposed to the local branch just opened which is 5 min down the road) but as I am willing to travel 45min for the rabbits, 20 min didn't seem that bad I guess it depends on the nature of the illness though.

Caz

hi all,
i just spent forever writing a reply to this, a&e discussion n bloody lost it,darn computer :twisted:

anyway cutting it down here we go again..........

vets are like doctors in that they are legally and ethically obliged to provide out of hours cover. this is often done by your practice on rota with a few others in the area maybe,different setups everywhere. the staff at your practice generally receive no extra for wrking nights n wknds as its part of your contract,perk f the job n all that.............

i've been nursing since i was 16 and spent 12yrs doing out of hourswork,we were quite lucky with our rota but nonetheless it can be draining to work all week,on call one nite then work all weekend from sat to mon then start again with another working week.this is why it really is better to have vets n nurses who are in the emergency field only,someone did mention the high suicide rate!!! :?

my boss set up an emergency clinic 5yrs ago of which i am the practice manager. this was done purely to relieve the practices in our area without compromising the ethical obligations etc.fees are no mre expensive than those charged out of hours by your own clinic. we were not set up as a profit making venture and we only just cover our overheads. given the increased rates we have to pay to get staff to work these "unsociable hours" this is why fees are higher. you wouldn't believe the abuse we get for this...you're sposed to be animal lovers etc...we are in this profession coswe care but a business needs to be paid for and we do have a high debtor rate as people think its ok to not pay their bills although we still have to pay ours!! you try getting a plumber out for free at 3am,yes i'm biased but i think we probably provide the better service!!!!!!!

with regard to the travelling distance,i'm sure it states somewhere that your emergency facility needs to be within a 20min drive from your practice(we cannot acount for how far a client lives from us as they often choose a practice by reputation not necessarily which is geographically nearest to them)this is during quieter times not rush hour etc .

i hope this gives you an idea of things from a vet nurse point of view,pls don't lynch me :shock:

love clairexxxxxxxxxxxx