Out of Hours vets - fees

[Cadenza12]

Long story but I had to phone the out of hours vets over the weekend. The cost for the appointment was £350 which seems extortionate to me. No treatment. I'm guessing that most people pay even if its a struggle because let's face it no one phones for fun. Vets Now seems to have cornered the market in my area. Or maybe it's reasonable?

Think this sounds pretty standard..I had to take my dog to the emergency out of hours vet clinic and it was £300 last year. Plus had the extra for treatment. Hope your pet is on the mend.

I've not used my OOH vet, but I have read on the local FB page that they want £300 up front before they will see your pet. I think they are Vets Now too. And an 80 minute drive away.

Yeah. It's horrific. Definitely a way to ensure your pet is insured.

My vets don’t charge any extra for weekend appointments!

£300+ can be very easily spent at our local OOH vets. They are the only ones in the area and so can charge whatever they want. I get it, they are incredibly skilled professionals who work unsociable hours. But, by goodness, they are paid well for it.

Even in a Sunday? What about late evenings or through the night?

@CagneyNYPD1vets arent paid especially well. It's the owner of the clinic that gets the money. Nearly all big chains now.

Most call out services - plumbers for example- charge handsomely for call outs.

Seriously, who wants to rush into work at 2am to deal with a stressful situation?

When I was a new grad vet we got £50 if we got called out. Being on call meant having the clinic mobile all night, getting woken many times (most people don't come in but want free advice over the phone), and usually coming in once or twice to deal with difficult cases.

By the way, in for work 8.30am as normal the next day.

Every 3rd weekend was spent entirely on call.

As a woman who worked in an incredibly dodgy area, I didn't relish being called out to open the clinic in the middle of the night and deal with an emotional stranger and their pet... but I did it for many years.

I got so much verbal abuse Re the fees.

Not again.

I paid £300 just to be seen. It’s ridiculous

That seems v high. Recently had to take the dog to out of hours, and the consultation fee was £115. SE

Vets get such a hard time though, I was happy to pay (plus medication on top.)

Sometimes you have to travel slightly further for routine appointments but there are practices that have clinics in the evenings and weekends so that the only OOH fee is really overnight.

£150 for my vets (Vets4Pets) for an appointment between 8pm and 8am, normally £80 so a £70 extra charge which I’ve always thought is very reasonable.

It is expensive, but they’ve got to staff the clinic and be ready for all eventualities. A couple of weeks ago our old dog took proper poorly one evening so we had to take him to the out of hours (Vets Now). The treatment and care was exemplary even though it did end with the loveliest dog in the world being PTS. Altogether it was £550 which included ultrasound. Not cheap, and it’s made my dd (whose dog he was) make sure her other dog has insurance.

I’ve had to call out an emergency plumber and that was jolly expensive, and they don’t have the overheads of operating a clinic.

Ddog had a stroke recently at 12.30am .. Out of hours would have been £303.27....quite specific!. Ddog settled to sleep and we saw our vet at 9am. Ddog trotted in without stress and was sadly pts with us and staff she knew.. We are happy with the decision not to take her to ooh..
To their credit they messaged next day to see if ddog was still needing treatment or was she now OK..

I recently had what I thought would be an out of hours appointment on a Sunday morning for my cat, but it was very pleasantly surprised when they actually charged me the normal consultation price as they’re now open 7 days a week, with normal appointments up to 9pm during the week (up to 6pm Saturday and Sunday)

The OOH charge is £145

£300 is a lot just for the consultation charge

Your OOH is cheap, but they are making up for it with their normal fees. I only pay £50 for a consultation during the day.

If you realised the costs that vets have, you wouldn’t say that. Don’t have pets if you don’t like it, you don’t have to.

It’s £80 for same day (so in hours emergency) but £52 if I book a scheduled consultation during opening hours.

How much was the out of hours fee and how much was the consultation fee? My vets charge £180 for the out of hours fee. I thought that was unreasonable as it’s a 24 hours vets, there’s people there working all of the time, you’re not dragging a vet out of bed at 2am like pp have said. With the consultation fee on top, mine would maybe come close to £300. The last time I went was with a pet rat (in normal hours) and was charged £70 just for the vet to look at her, god knows what it would be for a dog

@StayInTheMomentI don’t have an issue with general vet costs at all. The NHS spoils us and we do t appreciate how much things cost. I just think £300 just to be seen at a vet that specialises in OOH is excessive. Calling in a vet from home, I would have less issue with, but these vets are fully staffed for OOH.

I have seen an emergency vet on a bank holiday … paid around £300 as you say to walk through the door , but my insurance did cover it , minus my excess , but I do pay over £100 a month for insurance ( 3 year old dog ) so quite a comprehensive policy

Are you for real? My niece is a vet and works crazy hours including being there overnight, bank holidays, Xmas day etc so she is there when your animal needs it. And you moan about £300? As the pp said, don’t have animals.

I think you quite possibly are. I’ve called the emergency vet before and she has told me she will be at the surgery in 10 mins. The phone diverts to her number overnight and if she isn’t needed in the main practice, then she’s at home. However, the main practice is still staffed as they do all of their surgeries there and plenty of animals need to stay in overnight with the nurses and vets there.

The local equine vets though, they definitely have vets on duty overnight but still have the OOH fee.

But being full staffed OOH is more expensive as the pay is higher to permanently work anti-social hours particularly as their standard shift is 14 hours, but can easily run to 15/16 hours if they have a busy night. They are specialists in emergency medicine and surgery only seeing the sickest, most badly injured patients. They never get an easy booster or post op check.
Plus they have to keep in stock a range of medications for emergency situations and many clinics hold blood too - all of which ordinary practices often don’t have.

Most OOH is now owned by massive multinationals. Something like 60% of vets in the UK are owned by Mars. They aren’t in it for the love of animals!
£300 seems about standard. I paid £2.5k for my dog to see the vet at 11pm, and she stayed with them, on a drip for less than 24hrs. I thought that was quite expensive.
My own lovely, local, independent vet is far more reasonable, but like most of them, they outsource their OOH. A different dog of mine had to go in every day for 5 days to be on a drip, but she was well enough to come home at night. That was £450 for the 5 days. Big difference!