Pets at Home threatening schools with legal action after classing emplyees as key workers

[Keepcalmanddoyourbit]

twitter.com/simonkidwell/status/1241390189102186497

Advising employees to contact their legal department re: school places

FFS. Close them all then they can't whine.

Lots of people saying it doesn't need to be open during the day - not everyone works the same shifts. What about the NHS workers on who also have pets that they need to feed or get vet attention for?

PAH is providing an essential service - which is feeding and caring for pets. For those who are saying that pets aren't essential - what would you have us do? Stop feeding them and watch them starve to death? We have a moral and ethical obligation to care for them.

If you are concerned about non-essential services and containment, then perhaps you should be lobbying for hairdressers, barbers, nail bars, beauty salons, clothes shops, hobby shops, sporting shops, furniture shops and so on, to close.

If supermarket workers are key workers so are pets at home workers. Especially when you take into account their vet surgeries. Also they sell specialist foods for pets that you cannot easily get elsewhere.

No they are not.

Im sorry and I know how attached people are to their pets but this is a crisis. People must come before pets.

Ventilators used for pets/animals will need to be used for people, if they aren't being already.

Vets will have to switch to help in hospitals.

I would be in favour of an order that all domestic pets be killed and let the vets concentrate on humans but we are where we are and those are key workers. I suspect as there was only a week to Easter holidays it would have been more sensible just to have kept schools open as normal for the extra week.

A lot of people are key workers so many that schools might as well be open to all.

Fallonswift. It's not about whether they should close. Its whether their employees should be classed as key workers and be able to send their children to school.

Hairdressers, salons, and the like are not classed as key workers. If they are able to stay open it's because they have dealt with their staffing issues accordingly, and there is absolutely no reason why PaH cant do the same.

If vets are on the list they are key workers though aren't they just as those in the justice system are and postmen and refuse collectors are.

You kill NHS workers and food truck drivers and water plant workers pets ... and watch those people tools down in grief and rage.

Honestly, I have no pets, no direct skin in this game, but we don't need to be further traumatizing and aggravating these people right now. We need people - essential and locked in - calm, orderly and obedient.

Starving or killing pets will do the opposite and the panic and essential workers backlash will be immediate.

We have an amazing vet at Vets For Pets within Pets At Home. They now do deliveries in accordance with your plans.

And yes, of course it is necessary for them to stay open for emergencies and also for the shop to provide pet supplies, too.

Sorry should have said I’ve no real issue with them opening with skeleton staff on vastly reduced hours or delivery only

Not completely open!

*That's not going to overrun the school system, is it?'

No. But when several companies all to the same and all cause 1 or 2 extra children to go into school, they over tune the system.

Pets at home do not need to be open 7 days a week. Their employees kids do not have to be in school.

Theres loads of work around which do not include helping to bring the existing childcare system to its knees.

Who looks after NHS workers kids then? Who makes sure vulnerable kids have somewhere to go?

If PAH can not open at all without forcing their workers to put their kids in school, then when schools close they wont be able to open at all. Or will they, at that point, revise their opening hours and plan then? Or close?

If they can do it at that point. They can do it now.

If people can't keep their pets alive and healthy, the mental health impacts of isolation - as well as dangerous panic - will be much worse.

This. Our cat is a family member.

For those children off school home learning and lucky enough to have a pet, caring for them can be an important focus, their company a comfort through a difficult time.

Good post cappy hope it doesn't fall on deaf ears.

If they are able to stay open it's because they have dealt with their staffing issues accordingly, and there is absolutely no reason why PaH cant do the same.

But the point is that they need to stay open because a number of people depend on them for an essential service - which is feeding and medical care for their pets. Accordingly if their staff can't get childcare and can't work so they can't open, then people can't access the food and medical care they need for their animals.

You kill NHS workers and food truck drivers and water plant workers pets ... and watch those people tools down in grief and rage.

This.

They can stay open! They need to do what most other businesses have done and take account of the unique and deadly situation we are in.

The vet side of things has already closed!

How many more times does it need saying that No-one and by that I mean NO ONE is arguing that Pets at Home should close.

You can stop with the emotive dead pets schtick.

We have an amazing vet at Vets For Pets within Pets At Home. They now do deliveries in accordance with your plans.
By the end of the week you vets for pets will be emergency only.

I spoke to them yesterday.

And the pets at home doesnt need to force people to out their kids into school so they can maintain all their opening hours.

They need to change and adapt.

Christ on a bike this has given me the rage. Flame me if you like but your pet is not essential to anyone's life.

Are you naturally as stupid as this or do you have to work at it?

You kill NHS workers and food truck drivers and water plant workers pets ... and watch those people tools down in grief and rage.

No.
NHS workers have more important things on their minds right now

Christ on a bike this has given me the rage. Flame me if you like but your pet is not essential to anyone's life

Exactly

I would imagine NHS workers would prefer it if parents of primary school children weren't forced to send their kids to school so they could sell someone a box of locusts and tins of cat food.

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons have issued guidance as to who is a key worker. Farm animal and abattoir vets are key workers as they are essential to the food supply chain.
Small animal vets who are responsible for emergency care 24/7 are key workers
Vet nurses are not key workers they are business critical ie in event of lockdown would be able to work. Practices have been asked by the Royal College to structure so that key worker spaces in schools and childcare are only really used if they are completely necessary.
Our practice has vets with older children or no children who will cover the 24/7 emergency care and we will not be using key worker slots.

Lots of people saying it doesn't need to be open during the day - not everyone works the same shifts. What about the NHS workers on who also have pets that they need to feed or get vet attention for?

An nhs worker that needs to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?
How are they getting food for themseleves?

And how are those NHs workers going to work when the school close completely, because business like PAH decided they couldnt possibly change how they work?

How will that NHs worker, feed their pet when PAH has to close, when the schools do?
Because if they cant possibly not open without their employees sending their kids to childcare, they wont be able to open when schools and childcare settings close.

What happens then?

What aren’t people getting.

1. No one is suggesting PAH close full stop.

1. If their children get school placements that service will crash. The system is already creaking before it’s up and running! There will be no childcare for anyone.

People do not need to shop at home daily for their pets. They can go on the weekend or during an evening. If they can’t get there, they can order on line or ask a friend to pop in.

PAH is NOT an essential service that needs to be open during school hours.

They sell specialist foods you can’t get in supermarkets.