Vets for pets experiences

[BarrelOfOtters]

A vets for pets is opening in our local pets at home. Any experiences of using them?

Our local vets has been bought up by another chain and service has gone down.

Yes, always been happy with the service

Only ever had one problem with them ( they shortened the opening times without any contact) I've had four dogs with them and they know my dogs ( the reception team have always made a fuss of them )
The staff seem to stay so you see familiar faces there are aways thank you cards from happy customers in reception

I use them for the annual vaccination but that’s all after being over charged for unnecessary tests and treatment - use a small vet practice now

Have used one local(ish) to me selected by dog rescue when I was in process of adopting dog. . It was a franchise and owner had another vets for pets branch about 6 miles away. Like anywhere, it depended which vet was on duty. At least two vets were locums - one was hopeless. I quickly discovered who was competent (new rescue dog had several unexpected health issues) and always tried to book in with her. If they had to keep my dog overnight, they could only do 24 hr kennelled care at the other branch. I now use a closer, independent vet that I used with previous dog.

I use one and happy with it

So far all My Pets are healthy 🤞

But the care plans are good and cost effective and the vets are good.

My local independent vet is extortionate so it works for me

I had issue after issue with them.
I refuse to use them now. If they were the last vet standing, I'd move countries to avoid them.

I use one of the local indy vets now. I have a choice of two.

We have two.
One in the store and one on it's own.
I use the one on it's own.. although l know the vets work at both .
Had my cat castrated / chipped etc there last year.
No problem at all.
Vets/ nurses/ reception all brilliant.

We use ours just for the annual cat vaccination plan which we paid for once as a kitten and all his vaccinations are free for life now .

Everything else we use our own vets . One main reason is that when one of our animals is seriously ill or needs to be pts , I don’t want to be in the middle of a retail park and sitting in a shop ( our waiting area is open plan to the shop) as I have been known to have a cry at such times .

The second is that our independent vet shows more care , for example a seriously ill animal will be rushed straight through to the vets there , while I have seen first hand them having to wait their turn at Vets for Pets .

agree with @Theraffarian we do the same- free cat vaccs at V4Ps, but care elsewhere (our local V4P is mainly locums/ 1 year placement vets).

Never see a locum. See your regular vet... Have had positive and negative experiences with the same branch. We see the main vet now and has been great. Ime they do offer expensive treatments I have turned down and found my to have been necessary.. Once said infection (locum) and was actually obvious (vet) cancer. Added stress. Mixed bag overall.

Yes we use ours in pets at home for our cat and previous cat and I have nothing bad to say about them. Excellent care for my previous one at the end of her life and they treated the situation with real respect.

Now we have a kitten and they're really good with her as she's feisty as anything in the room 😆

I think it depends on the actual vets/nurses there mind you.

Always been excellent in my experience. They are generalists though and referred us when orthopaedic surgery was needed.

They are franchised so one person's experience could be different. I like the clear pricing though, the only time I used another vet they charged a fortune and weren't upfront about the cost

Great, i followed the vet when they left then bought into a partnership there, I've used another local V4P too and they've been good but at all vets it really depends on the staff employed their not just ownership.

The prices are reasonable for the area and they sometimes have some special offers on for more routine treatments, I had a dental cheap with one. I don't bother with vet plans so not sure if there's is good value or not. Old vets was an independent with decent staff but was a bit chaotically run so service wasn't always ideal and they only did half Saturday at shut at 6pm but they sold up to corporate.

Although they have been included in the CMA big corporates, the V4P ownership structure is different as usually a couple of vets/nurses have an owner stake in the business rather than just being employees and therefore a vested interest in success and some flexibility on business decisions while also benefitting from the service side of a chain for finance , buying power, marketing, accounting, HR, legal which I know my vet found having to go from purely clinical employee to running a business very overwhelming.

I'm not sure how easy it was for vets to set up independently back when only vets could own practices but can imagine the finances needed to start one from scratch now must be huge so at least V4P offers vets a halfway house.

Ours is fantastic, but I think it might depend on which practice as I've had different services from different branches.

I like that they open late and on weekends, so no out of hours fees. They also deal with all our insurance claims so we never have to pay anything upfront.

Ours is absolutely brilliant. Our beloved vet left a large independent practice and set up with V4P and we went with him, as he had been dealing with our pets since he qualified.

This all sounds positive, I've signed up to be contacted about registering. Also found out one of the vets is one we liked from our old practice who I thought had left the area....

We moved from one because there was only 1 vet and if she was off or sick it was difficult. Plus their OOH was miles away.
The vet and nurses were great though and they do a lot to help a local wildlife rescue I am involved with

Very happy with them. The vets in our local branch are lovely, and they volunteer at the local PDSA hospital when they can. As we found out when we had to rush our pup to A&E and he was kept in for a few nights. Was great that he had familiar faces looking after him.

Vets for Pets are a franchise system so most of the stuff that you see as an owner will really depend on the owners (generally the head vet or nurse) and therefore be highly individual to the branch. The ‘corporate’ arm is responsible for stuff like branding, negotiating bulk discounts on drugs, HR etc that are less important to most owners.

When choosing a vet, I’d recommend considering the following:

Opening hours - if your vet is only open until 5pm and Saturday mornings, and you work until 6pm, this is going to be really inconvenient. Choose somewhere with opening hours that suit you. Weekend opening also means you may use the expensive emergency service less often, and save money.

Services - if your pet has a certain issue or is prone to one, or if it’s very difficult for you to travel, then choosing a vet with more facilities in house means there will be less need for you to be ‘referred’ to another practice. I.e if you have a frenchie, find a practice with a vet who loves ophthalmology, if you have a Cavalier Kind Charles, find one with a cardiologist…

Cats/rabbits - there are lists of vets who aim to be ‘cat /rabbit friendly’ (ie facilities for hospitalising away from dogs, vets with further training in these species).

Insurance - sometimes it’s possible to claim directly from your insurance (as opposed to pay the vet and claim it back) but not all vets do this with all companies - so if it makes a difference for you then this is a good thing to clarify at the outset.

Individual staff - vets are human, and all different, so if you find someone you gel with then that’s worth a lot. It does result in better care if you stick with one vet who knows your pet, rather than hopping between practices - there’s a huge amount of catching up to do on the animals’ history when a new vet takes over care, and often very little time to do it in.

These IMO are way more important than your practice branding/care plan (they’re all pretty identical)/whether it’s independant or corporate.

Worst experience of a vets ever staff rude vets rude just want to take as much money from you as possible do not care about animals the Slough practice in pets at home DO NOT GO THERE COMPLETE IMCOPADENCE DISGUSTING
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