General
information
Appointments/
home visits
We are happy to attend our clients horses at either their own stables or at our clinic. We find that detailed investigations are best performed at the clinic, where we have access to the necessary diagnostic equipment and our fully trained staff for assistance. Our normal working hours are between 9.00 am and 6.00 pm, -Mondays to Fridays, and 9.00am –1.00pm on Saturdays. Appointments made by clients outside these hours will incur an out of hours surcharge (currently £15.00). Please note however that when clients book appointments during normal working hours, but where we can only attend outside these hours, in this instance no surcharge will be applied. Additionally where two or more clients have their horses examined on a single visit we are happy to split the visit charge between the number of owners.
Repeat
Prescriptions
In common with virtually every Veterinary practice in the country we are only allowed to dispense drugs to ‘animals under our care’. This is in direct contrast to pharmacists (e.g. Boots), who are allowed to sell drugs to the general public. To comply with current regulations before we sell any drug (including anthelmintics) we have to be able to prove that we have an up to date knowledge of the health status of each horse. This is a legal requirement and is for your horse’s own protection. We need to clinically examine your horse every six months to check that any repeat medication is still clinically effective, that the dosage is correct and that your horse is suffering no adverse effects from these drugs. In order to comply with this legislation and to provide a cost effective service to our clients, we note the results of our ‘MOT’ tests on the computer record of each horse. This means that we are happy to supply treatments for any condition noted at that time for a period of six months.
Microchips
With the increasing number of horse thefts all over the country we recommend that our patients are microchipped. We can easily insert a small microchip into the middle part of the crest on the left hand side. This is painless, cost effective and also provides a tamper proof method of identification.
Fees
Quality healthcare for both humans and animals is very expensive. The training of both Veterinary surgeons and Veterinary nurses is very similar to that of doctors and nurses. However we receive no government subsidies or financial backing. Quite apart from the normal everyday business expenses, the cost of new medical and surgical equipment is very high. Each year the cost of drugs and consumables continues to rise above that of inflation. As you can now appreciate the cost of running a Veterinary practice to high standards and providing a 24 hour emergency service, is quite substantial. We can only maintain and in time hopefully improve the service we offer to our clients by charging a realistic fee. In order to keep our administration costs to a minimum we would ask that all our clients settle their accounts promptly. To keep costs affordable we recommend that all horses are insured for Veterinary fees and are happy to advise on reputable companies. For your convenience we accept all major credit and debit cards as well as cheques (supported by a cheque guarantee card). We can also offer a settlement discount of 5% for any account paid in full at the time.
Estimates
We cannot always assess the exact cost of any procedure in advance or foresee all the possible complications in each individual case. However we are pleased to provide a written breakdown of the likely costs of any major procedure in advance.
Customer
care
We are committed to providing you our clients, and our patients with the highest standards of clinical care and service. Unfortunately we realise that occasionally we get things wrong. We would much prefer that dissatisfied clients contacted us in the first instance so that we could try to rectify the situation. Otherwise we will never learn from our mistakes and could even repeat them!.
