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 CLINIC
SERVICES:
APPOINTMENTS
All surgery consultations are by appointment for your convenience.
For routine visits, such as vaccinations, it's advisable to
contact us a few days in
advance of your preferred attendance date. We aim to
provide an appointment as soon as possible for a sick cat.
OPERATIONS
Elective surgery (e.g., neutering
or dentistry) is performed on a day patient basis, Monday to
Friday. Patients are admitted in the early morning and are discharged
later the same day. This provides ample time for your cat to
wake up from the anaesthetic and ensures you encounter as few
problems as possible when your cat goes home. Any patients who
require intensive treatment or close observation can be kept
in overnight. Emergency procedures obviously take place as soon
as possible after admission.
HOME VISITS
Home visits may be necessary in some circumstances. They are
time-consuming for the veterinary surgeon so they tend to be
expensive. If you request a home visit, it's advisable to confine
your cat to one room with limited hiding spaces. Some form of
examination surface (table/kitchen work top) and good lighting
is required. Routine home visits are scheduled midmorning or
mid-afternoon and should be booked several days in advance.
If your cat has an urgent or life threatening problem it's much
better to bring him or her to the Clinic as quickly as possible
(always telephone first). The veterinary surgeon cannot provide
all the necessary emergency equipment on a home visit and valuable
time may be lost.
PET PASSPORTS
Under the Pet Passport travel scheme (formerly PETS travel scheme)
pets which have fulfilled a set of regulations are allowed to
travel freely between Great Britain and certain countries without
the need for 6 months' quarantine in the UK. Our veterinary
surgeons are registered as Local Veterinary Inspectors with
DEFRA and are authorised to complete the paperwork for this
scheme. The scheme is developing rapidly - up to date information
is available from the Ministry
website.
PAYMENT OF FEES
There is no equivalent of the National Health Service for animals.
Fees have to cover all running costs including staff wages,
building rent and rates, maintenance and repair, medical and
surgical equipment purchase, insurance, fuel and telephone bills.
At the Clinic, we request payment at the end of each consultation
or procedure. We are happy to provide estimates where necessary.
To help prevent financial worries, we
recommend pet health insurance.
OUT OF HOURS PROBLEMS
All veterinary practices are obliged to provide an out-of-hours
emergency service for their patients. Until relatively recently,
this would be provided by the vets in the practice. Unfortunately
it didn’t involve shift work: the vet who was working during
the day would then be on call that night but would also be back
at work the next day. Busy nights could mean little or no sleep
so not surprising to find that you didn’t function very well
the following day. This might have been acceptable twenty or
thirty years ago but today's demanding medical and surgical
standards require sharper body and brain function.
The ideal would be for each
practice to employ dedicated out-of-hours staff but this is
prohibitively expensive for all but the very large multivet
practices. In the past few years we have seen the emergence
of dedicated out of hours veterinary clinics which provide emergency
cover for a group of participating practices. Vets Now are a
national organisation dedicated to the provision of out of hours
emergency care for veterinary practices. They are typically
based at PDSA veterinary treatment centres which are extremely
well equipped and they employ staff who have a particular interest
in emergency medicine and surgery. At The Cat Clinic, we subscribe
to Vets Now to provide
out-of -hours emergency care for our patients. Our Vets Now
clinic liaises closely with us to inform us of any of our patients
who may have been seen out-of-hours and forward full clinical
details so we know exactly what's happend and what treatment
has been given.
The address for the Vets
Now clinic is c/o PDSA Pet Aid Hospital, 2b Hutchison Crossway,
Edinburgh, EH14 1RR. If you’re not familiar with the area, go
to www.streetmap.co.uk
and type in the postcode in the search box to see a map.
Vets Now take over from us in
the evening when our clinic closes and at the weekends from
Saturday lunchtime onwards. The telephone number is 0131
444 0990 but it’s always best to call us first as we'll
either be there or we’ll have an answer machine message with
the current emergency contact details. The Vets Now staff can
also provide advice if you feel it can't wait until we are open
again. Please note that an additional out-of-hours emergency
fee is charged for using the Vets Now service. Quotes are available
if required. The fees for attending to your cat in an emergency
can be considerable, running into the hundreds and possibly
thousands of pounds. Please
consider pet health insurance to ensure your cat can receive
the best possible care 24 hours a day.
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