to be annoyed with my vets wanting to charge me five quid for a poxy prescription for online flea drops

[moobrain]

Surely they make enough dosh already without having to charge me just for printing a bit of paper with her signature on.

I spend a fortune there

Are they some kind of fabaroonie flea drops? Can't you just buy Frontline or similar from a pet shop or supermarket?

I just buy Frontline from the chemist.

you can get frontline much cheaper from amazon.

it's advocate - fleas and worms aand mites

you were lucky, mine charge £10

I've gone back to frontline, it stopped working which is why I changed to advocate, but seems to be working now

Aaah just bypass your vet completely when it comes to things like flea and worming treatments - THIS site sells all such things for a teeny tiny fraction of vet and supermarket prices

Thanks scotsfairy and others

pinkhebea

I buy Effipro, its Frontline under a diff name, exact formula.
Under £10 for 4 capsules :

here

I think £5 is a very reasonable prescription charge. Veterinary practices provide a wide range of services including a 24-hour emergency service - the revenue that they make selling drugs such as flea and worming treatments enable them to provide these services.

Cheap drug websites may sell treatments at much lower prices but you can't ring them up in the middle of the night when you are concerned about your pet.

It's the lowest amount allowed to be charged for a private prescription. They can charge as much as they like so £5 is pretty good!

£5 is cheap to me, I agree that if you think you can get flea stuff cheaper elsewhere then more fool you for buying it, although I would have thought you'd just be saving pennies and the vet stocking it has the advantage of instant treatment., particularly if you live somewhere remote.
Agree that if they don't make money from this stuff they'll just put up consulting fees and pet insurance will go up. They are running a business.
I presume the main thing you pay for is the vet's diagnosis of what is wrong with your pet as if you had known it was fleas and knew which treatment to get you'd not have bothered going to the vet.

£5 is nothing for something like this, do stop complaining.

My vet wanted to charge me £13 for a prescription for farking shampoo!

Whatever you do, don't buy Advocate online without a prescription. It's illegal to do so (it's a legislated drug, and no, that's not the proper term, I can't think of the correct one, but you know what I mean!) and it may not be the same as the prescription only stuff and therefore dangerous.

There was a company selling it online without need for a prescription recently - they got shut down and there was, I believe, legal action taken.

Vets on here tell me that Effipro contains the same active ingredient as Frontline - both are sold by Vetmeds, which is the cheapest online store I've found and very fast and reliable service. If you still want Advocate it's worth ringing round to see whether other local vets offer a charge free prescription service, there's nothing wrong with being registered at/using more than one vet practice.

And the term I was looking for is a controlled drug!

PS - last I knew, the Comapnion Care group of vets didn't charge for prescriptions but only the consultation fee so if you have one locally it may be worth calling them to see if that's still the case and if so perhaps using them for, say, routine jabs, and getting the prescription while you're at it.

Pah! CompANION Care, is what I meant!

It's not just a signature though, is it? It's her professional judgement and knowledge. By signing she's taking responsibility for choosing a safe and effective drug for your animal. If something goes wrong she's accountable. She's spent several years studying and there are costs associated with this. It also takes time and resources to check, write and record prescriptions. Why should you get that for free (especially since you obviously take your business elsewhere once you've had her advice)?

Next time you see your GP, ask how much they charge for a private prescription. You'll be suprised.

I'm a vet. DogsBestFriend is absolutely right that you can't legally buy Advocate without a prescription. It's not a controlled drug, technically, but a POM - Prescription Only Medicine. Controlled drugs are things like morphine, which have to be kept under lock and key, etc.
£5 is a pretty reasonable prescription charge. If you go somewhere that charges less, be sure they will make their charges up elsewhere. If you buy drugs online, the vet is losing the revenue for that transaction, and at the end of the day, if we don't make a profit, we don't stay in business. A prescription is a legal document, and if a vet fills one out fraudulently then disciplinary action can be taken and the vet can lose the right to practice. I don't think it's unreasonable to charge for writing a document that I'm accountable for.
I do understand that people need/want to save money by buying drugs online - online vendors often sell drugs for less than private vets can buy them for, I'm told, so there's not a lot we can do to compete on drug price, often.
I don't own a practice, by the way, so I don't have any direct say on pricing etc, myself.

But why are vets sometimes so prohibitively expensive? My vet charges £28 for Malaseb shampoo which I could get online for around £10.

So my vet charges £13 for the prescription which, when p&p is added, makes it about the same.

I'm quite sure the vet makes a hefty profit on the shampoo, and he doesn't need to see the dog to prescribe it. For shampoo, surely £5 or less would be more reasonable.

He also just charged me £22 for a small bottle of hibiscrub which I then saw in Boots for £4!! I feel I am regularly ripped off..

Obviously some practices are more expensive than others. Our practice charges just over £5 for a prescription and about £4 for a small bottle of Hibiscrub. I can't remember what we charge for Malaseb, but it is somewhere around or above £20; your vet should be seeing the dog every few months to prescribe it, because it's a prescription medicine. Bear in mind also that 20% of the cost of all veterinary items is VAT.
I'm not saying some vets don't overcharge, because some vets clearly do. I'm saying it is not unreasonable to make a reasonable charge for writing out a prescription, which is a professional service. Lawyers don't write out legal documents for free!

Alice has just said everything I was about to add!

Some vets do overcharge. But some clients have no idea of the costs involved in providing the service, and of the strict regulations within which vets must work when prescribing.

I think our wonderful NHS is largely to blame for people having no idea of the costs of healthcare and drugs in particular.

Thank you, Alice for correcting me on the nature of Advocate, it's always good to learn. :) I just assumed that it would be a controlled drug by virtue of being a POM.

no, controlled drugs are basically things that can be abused - morphine, ketamine, and the like. It's hard to see how anyone could use Advocate recreationally! :)

I could be wrong (indeed it may have changed) but I'm fairly sure ketamine isn't a CD - the advice is to store it with the CDs and log it in the same way but for some reason it is POM. Or it was.

There you go, an example of crazy drug rules!

I'm sure you're right GT - the BVA recommend storing ketaset with the controlled drugs, but it doesn't have the same status.

Wanted to add that I totally agree with your comments about some clients not understanding the costs involved in providing veterinary services.