Out of hours vets

TheOldTrout

TheOldTrout

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I found this article online the other day.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jan/24/vets-now-fees-out-of-hours-bills
Would be interested in people's thoughts on it. Vets Now are the people we took our Parsons too in the small hours of the morning last month and it was expensive, but they did tell me their basic consultation charge over the phone before we took him there and we did also get really good service. The receptionist who answered the phone had told the vet she could hear the dog crying in the background when I phoned, so vet and waiting room were ready and waiting for us and we could take him more or less straight through. Staff were all lovely and very competent. My feeling is that the quality of the service we had and the anti-social hours meant the high charge was reasonable. Would love to know what you all think though :-)
 
I totally agree with the article - I stick with my current vets for a number of reasons, one of which is they are (I think) the only practice in the area to run their own out of hours service. I moved to them years ago, when I rang the vets I was with then to be told I had to take my dog to a surgery about 40 minutes drive away and I would also be charged an extortionate out of hours fee!

I have no problem with paying an appropriate fee for out of hours services, the poor vets have my total sympathy, but I don't want to be dragging an ill animal a much longer distance unnecessarily
 
The vet we usually took our dogs too use an OOH out of town, some way away. We went to Vets Now because they are much nearer and easy to find (and receptionist asked me over the phone if I needed directions).
 
I'd probably opt to take the pet to an alternative local vet that ran out of hours if there was one about or a vets4pets or similar rather than use vets now.
 
I’ve found vets now to be very good, and extremely up front about their prices. We’ve been a couple of times and were very glad they were there! When you call them they tell you straight away how much the consultation will be, and again before they do any procedure. From my experience they do what they can until they hand over to your own vet.

We were a couple of hundred pounds for 2 cats on a Saturday night, for consultation, over night stay, drips, charcoal infusion and a couple of other bits and bobs. I thought that was reasonable.
 
I am very grateful that my vets still cover their own OOH , if I have an emergency I like to talk to a vet that I know and trust. Having said that, it is worth bearing in mind that the staff at OOH surgeries like Vets Now have staff who are quite likely more used to dealing with things that might be considered an emergency than a general practice as that tends to be all they see. Also you are paying a premium rate because it is likely the staff work permanent nights .
 
My vet is the local out of hours hospital (CVS). When I went on New Years Day evening the consultation was £50 which I was very happy with. My dogs know the hospital well so I’m happy with it.

The local Companion Care vets is more expensive and if your dog needs to be an inpatient they have you ferrying your dog backward and forwards in the morning and evening from the out of hours vets (my vets). Im pretty sure it’s the same for all the local vets. Personally I wouldn’t be happy to confuse my dog in that way.
 
We’ve used Vets Now once. Our cat had a seizure at about 11pm one Sunday night. I phoned our vet and got the recorded message, which directed us to vets now. I phoned them, and whilst speaking to the lady who answered the phone, Rosie came out of it, and during our chat, she was asking what Rosie was doing etc. Rosie was now completely back to normal, and sitting on the floor cleaning herself. We were given the choice to take her in or not, and the prices explained. We decided to take her in for our own peace of mind. Vet checked her over, nothing obvious wrong, and advised us to take her to our own vet the following day, where they could run bloods etc, and she said it would work out cheaper, so that is what we did.
 
We went back to the vet practice that we use now because the vet we were using, although a brilliant vet, works on his own most of the time and is impossible to get hold of in an emergency. I once rang and was advised to contact a small animal practice almost an hour's drive away - not much good for a horse emergency. The practice that we use is a big, mixed practice, treating pets, horses and farm animals. We have needed them in an emergencies a few times. One Sunday evening I had to ring about the two Rottweilers, the receptionist told me the callout fee was over £100, I checked that was one fee for the two of them, not each and away we went. I can see why they charge such a large OOH fee, to stop people just using their OOH service instead of making an appointment during working hours.
 
Our local vets that provide OOH match VetsNow prices so it's no cheaper. I was on a 24 hour rota in the job before- 8pm-11pm £135, 11pm-7am £185. Now I clock off at 7pm, last routine at 6.30. I'd rather pay for someone who's slept during the day, but equally vets now if often one vet, one nurse, to 20 patients. It's a hard call to make. It's 25min to our local vets now, less than 10mins to the local vets, so if something was really sick that'd help the choice too. 25mins is a long time in the back of a car with a seizing dog (full recovered thanks to vets now)- £600 later.

As an aside our (daytime) equivalent to the minimum database is over twice vets now in the region of the article!
 
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Ive thankfully never needed an out of hours vet for any cats/dogs but i did need one out at approx 2AM for a foaling gone wrong. I only had to pay £80 for everything, which included getting (dead) foal out, and the jabs the mare needed after. It was the on call vet obviously, but still.
 
I’ve only ever needed OOH at Medivets when Bear sliced his pad open on Christmas Eve. I wasn’t inspired when she exclaimed ‘What a big cocker’. He’s a 24kg extremely tall springer. For stitches, bandaging, antibiotics etc, it was almost £500, which I thought was over the top, but it was a serious injury. They wanted to keep him in overnight, but I declined.

I’ve never heard of Vets Now.
 
Emergency vets for the local practices charged me £136 just for initial consultation on the two occasions I have had to take dog there
 
One local Vets4Pets does not charge OOH fee. You can make an appointment at 3a.m for routine appointments. Could not believe it so queried it and it was correct
 
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