I’ll be paying an experienced vet £60k for a four day week with no on call, and I still can’t fill the vacancy.
Emergency Vet availability
- Thread starter Buchan
- Start date
Alex88
Well-Known Member
Some dairy farms near me are paying their dairymen £50,000 and housing them in a cottage. So £60,000 is still pretty low. How long are those 4 days a week?
wildfowler.250
Well-Known Member
Worcestershire.What part of the country..?
Two 7pm finishes and two 5pm finishes. That’s a rarity. Many practices offering 4 day weeks want the vets there till 7-8pm. We pretty much always get away on time and get a lunch break, unlike many practices.
WH308
Well-Known Member
This is exactly the issue. There is no NHS for dogs. What you are paying for is private medical care for you pet. If everyone paid for their own medical care then the feelings would be different.
My dad paid £15k for a knee replacement privately, why should an experienced surgeon carrying out a comparable operation on a large dog for a similar price be berated?
As for vaccines and insurance who here has paid for travel vaccines? Mine were a fortune to go to rural Ecuador. I have private medical insurance, this is the human equivalent to pet insurance, it’s not cheap.
If everyone who had surgery on the NHS was presented with a bill for it even though they didn’t have to pay, it would be an eye opener as to the cost of medical care full stop.
Alex88
Well-Known Member
Yes 8am til 7pm seems to be common on job adverts I'm seeing at the moment!
Have used VetsNow numerous times at anti social hours of the day and night. Every vet superb.
Not cheap though, and thankfully have pet insurance
Not cheap though, and thankfully have pet insurance
£33m? I take it this is the whole group, not just your practice?
Alex88
Well-Known Member
Yes multiple practices but still excessive. Clients and staff are just a number now, not people
My wife was head nurse of a small practice in Worthing. They eventually sold out to IVC, the vets can’t use the drugs they want, they have to use what the company tell them to, they have to use IVC’s out of hours service that can’t get sufficient staff so often people end up travelling to Eastbourne or Portsmouth. Needless to say when out lab bitch was getting near to whelping we registered with a vet who isn’t owned by a conglomerate and so their own out of hours.
To me it seems wrong that these companies own the vets, the referral vets, the drug suppliers and the crematoriums. But the rot started when vets where portrayed as super vets and heros. The profession sought higher and higher academic standards and lost stockmanship. It became the trophy profession, harder to get into than medicine and the practical skills went out the door.
To me it seems wrong that these companies own the vets, the referral vets, the drug suppliers and the crematoriums. But the rot started when vets where portrayed as super vets and heros. The profession sought higher and higher academic standards and lost stockmanship. It became the trophy profession, harder to get into than medicine and the practical skills went out the door.
Since I qualified in 97 I have seen the profession change from small practices owned by time served partners to larger practices that merged and became limited companies run by directors who may not be vets and eventually sold into corporate ownership. I can’t blame any practice owners who sold to corporates, as the values being paid were many times greater than an individual assistant could pay to get his/her foot in the door. If this seems somehow unethical ask yourself this, if you were to sell your house that is worth in your opinion £300k would you accept a bid for £500k or sell it for £200k to your postman because he has helped you when you lived there? In some ways corporatisation has had good effect by increasing inter-practice cooperation, giving more career options for all staff members and almost certainly increasing wages. From a clients point of view I think it has definitely made the services much more expensive. Since we sold our practice 4 years ago I have seen prices of common procedures increase by around 60% as a consequence of annual price rises but also by charging separately for things that were previously included. The flip side is that the practice now have more staff and see fewer cases so the hours are a bit more predictable rather than being manic all of the time. Unfortunately I have also seen that just putting more staff in sometimes allows the efficiency to decrease and where shareholders or venture capitalists need maintained profit to be kept happy - this is inevitably funded by the clients. In some instances this is driven by clients requests - consider the hospitalised cases. Most clients prefer to have a member of staff looking after them through the night rather than them being left lone in a locked surgery as used to be standard The night staff are expensive -absolute (minimum of £60k per year to have one vet nurse there- so £165 per night regardless of whether you have any animals actually in the hospital.Our experience was that if you have one worker on nights at a time they get fed up and leave so having two night staff in each night works better (so £120k per year)? What I am trying to say is that the price rises are part due to corporatisation but also due to these corporates trying to provide better services that then need to be paid for by clients. There is good and bad in everything!
Scotty99
Well-Known Member
A lot of vets practices are now not offering in house 24x7 and emergency cover. They often have arrangements with companies like Vets Now who provide overnight and weekend care. A few years ago my two WHVs were poisoned, our vets took them in, gave them stuff to make them vomit, put them on drips and gave them charcoal based paste to absorb what they didn’t throw up. Come 6 pm they said WE would have to take them to Vets Now (10 miles away) for overnight care and that WE would have to fetch them back to our Vets the following morning. This went on for two days and nights until they were well enough to come home.
Needless to say we changed vets to one who provided in house 24x7 cover, after that. Whenever selecting a vets practice make sure they offer their own in house 24x7 cover.
Just to balance things up, Vets Now were absolutely superb in looking after our two dogs and too be honest I was happier overnight when I knew our two dogs were with them rather than our own vets at the time.
Our new vets practice are also superb.
Needless to say we changed vets to one who provided in house 24x7 cover, after that. Whenever selecting a vets practice make sure they offer their own in house 24x7 cover.
Just to balance things up, Vets Now were absolutely superb in looking after our two dogs and too be honest I was happier overnight when I knew our two dogs were with them rather than our own vets at the time.
Our new vets practice are also superb.
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Mine are not pets but working dogs , don't
tell them that they would be shocked!
When something happens in the field as sure as eggs are eggs it will be out with working hours by the time you get them to a vet. I can be 3 hours away from my own
vet and while I did once contact an emergency vet where I was working I would have been quicker contacting my
own vet and traveling their including a ferry crossing and a 3 hour drive.
While it has been very rarely that I have had to contact my vet out of hours they have never failed to respond promptly when I have had to, expensive definitely
but that is to be expected.
However my vets practice is changing in
many ways a lot of them not for the better
I wonder for how much longer they will continue to provide an out of hours service.
tell them that they would be shocked!
When something happens in the field as sure as eggs are eggs it will be out with working hours by the time you get them to a vet. I can be 3 hours away from my own
vet and while I did once contact an emergency vet where I was working I would have been quicker contacting my
own vet and traveling their including a ferry crossing and a 3 hour drive.
While it has been very rarely that I have had to contact my vet out of hours they have never failed to respond promptly when I have had to, expensive definitely
but that is to be expected.
However my vets practice is changing in
many ways a lot of them not for the better
I wonder for how much longer they will continue to provide an out of hours service.
Sonicdmb73
Well-Known Member
My last out of hours experience was during covid. My Springer bitch cut her vulva on some discarded glass. A quite nasty cut I cleaned it up and rang our vets. A telephone/email (for pictures) consultation led to us taking her in. For the initial look they allowed me in (with appropriate PPE) but I wasn’t allowed to stay while they stitched her up. The vet did comment on her being far less stressed with me there. However the outcome was good and I didn’t think it excessively expensive. Considering the nurse was on duty and the vet too albeit she was not in the surgery.
As far as I know the practice is still owned by the vets themselves. Maybe that’s the difference, it’s a bit more personal too them.
As far as I know the practice is still owned by the vets themselves. Maybe that’s the difference, it’s a bit more personal too them.
I agree…the ooh vets tend to be a different breed in my opinion..mostly done residencies in emergency medicine and quite confident in their abilities too…yes, you get a vet ready for the shift instead of one whose on night call-out and worn! Like I say, all the ones I know are very capable in front line treatment. I’ve worked for a large vet practice for 24 years as the practice baldrick/coffee man/wee wee wiper/intern motivator… so I’ve seen em all.. I take my collie to specialists even though my missus is a smallies vet. End of the day what would you do for your most loyal chum?
Looking on as an outsider and owning no pets, I will give my observations.
A while ago, I gave my sister, who has no transport, a lift to the local Vets. her cat was rather I’ll, and completely off its food, this was during Covid and so we stayed in the car, not being allowed into the practice, we suspected it had to be put down, it was 11 years old, she had been previously been phoning the vet for an appointment.
After 20 minutes a female vet came out and collected the cat in its cat basket. she then took it inside for examination. After about 15 mins she returned and said they couldn’t really find anything wrong with it. I asked what my sister was to do?
The vet then asked if the cat had insurance, the reply was yes, to which the vets attitude changed totally. She said they could take the cat and transport it to another linked out of hours vets and monitor it overnight.
It was 4pm. By 11pm my sister received a call saying they had carried out a host of tests and the cat needed to be put down, they had conveniently managed to run up a near £800 bill in the process!
My sister had 3 cats, in my experience of this and a few other occasions, once “insurance” is mentioned, many of these practices jump on this to carry out scans, blood tests, injections etc etc to deliberately inflate the bill.
She was told that they could carry out chemotherapy on one 13 year old insured cat suspected of having cancer!….. she declined. I wonder how much money they would have made out of that pointless course of treatment, prolonging the cats misery in the process no doubt.
She has changed vets but found that as they are all corporately owned, they basically do the same thing. Their main aim seems to be, to make absolutely as much money as possible.
A while ago, I gave my sister, who has no transport, a lift to the local Vets. her cat was rather I’ll, and completely off its food, this was during Covid and so we stayed in the car, not being allowed into the practice, we suspected it had to be put down, it was 11 years old, she had been previously been phoning the vet for an appointment.
After 20 minutes a female vet came out and collected the cat in its cat basket. she then took it inside for examination. After about 15 mins she returned and said they couldn’t really find anything wrong with it. I asked what my sister was to do?
The vet then asked if the cat had insurance, the reply was yes, to which the vets attitude changed totally. She said they could take the cat and transport it to another linked out of hours vets and monitor it overnight.
It was 4pm. By 11pm my sister received a call saying they had carried out a host of tests and the cat needed to be put down, they had conveniently managed to run up a near £800 bill in the process!
My sister had 3 cats, in my experience of this and a few other occasions, once “insurance” is mentioned, many of these practices jump on this to carry out scans, blood tests, injections etc etc to deliberately inflate the bill.
She was told that they could carry out chemotherapy on one 13 year old insured cat suspected of having cancer!….. she declined. I wonder how much money they would have made out of that pointless course of treatment, prolonging the cats misery in the process no doubt.
She has changed vets but found that as they are all corporately owned, they basically do the same thing. Their main aim seems to be, to make absolutely as much money as possible.
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