Facilities

Reception

You will be welcomed by one of our lovely receptionists when you and your pet arrive for your appointment.

Please feel free to make enquiries about the practice, items on display in the waiting area or ask for advice. The receptionists will be happy to advise you or point you in the right direction of someone who can help.

We offer appointments at 15 minutes intervals with the vets and 10-minute intervals with the nurses, using double appointments where necessary.

We always aim to keep to time, but we hope you appreciate this isn’t always possible if dealing with unexpected events and emergencies. We ask you to be patient as we hope you understand sometimes very ill animals will need to be treated first. We will keep you informed of any delays and offer alternative appointments if you are unable to wait.

Consulting Room

We take time to:

Gather a history of your pet
Listen to your concerns
Give your animal a full clinical examination

We will involve you in all decisions to be made about your pet’s treatment and/or medication

Cat only clinics:

We host a cat only clinic between 1pm and 3pm on a Wednesday which means we only book in cats at this time to see vets and nurses to ensure a quiet and calm waiting area and environment for your feline pets.
We are an accredited Silver Cat Friendly Clinic.

Wellness Screenings for dogs and cats:

A wellness screening is a comprehensive medical MOT for your cat or dog that can detect health issues and help to give you peace of mind about your pets health and wellbeing.
This is recommended in healthy adult cats and dogs to aid early detection of disease and help them to live happier and healthier lives.
Wellness screens are carried out by our nurses. They will carry out a physical exam, take a complete clinical history, urine test, blood pressure measurement and blood test.

Weight Management:

Our nurses carry out weight management consults to assist owners on how to help their pet control their weight. This could be to lose, gain or maintain weight.

Laboratory Services

Blood tests:

We can run a variety of in-house blood tests with accurate results available on the same day. This enables the vet to reach a correct diagnosis quickly and plan the appropriate treatment for your pet.
A small number of tests will need to be sent to an external laboratory with results available in 1-5 days.

Urinalysis:

We can perform tests on urine in-house, giving us an insight into the health of your animal’s kidneys, test for diabetes, and assess urine infections rapidly allowing for further tests to be performed immediately if we have any concerns. This ensures your pet get the appropriate treatment as soon as possible.

Cytology:

We can perform cytology (the study of cells) tests in-house. Samples may be taken from the skin or ears or sometimes with a fine needle from lumps and bumps. This gives us an opportunity to make a diagnosis on benign problems, avoiding unnecessary surgery.
Some tests may need to be sent to an external laboratory with results available in 10-14 days.

Faecal analysis and Histology:

We send both faecal and histology (tissue) samples away to our external lab on the same day as the sample was taken.
Results can take between 10-14 days depending on the sample and the test required.

Dental Treatment

We have modern dental equipment including a high speed drill and ultrasonic scaler. This means your pet can receive the very best in dental care.

We complete a full dental chart for every patient who undergo a dental procedure with us. This is a gold standard procedure we like to carry out which means we can show you exactly what we have done that day and we can always refer back to.

X-ray and Ultrasound

We have a high quality x-ray machine which allows us to process your pet’s x-rays within seconds. This means your pet is exposed to the minimum amount of radiation required to obtain high quality x-ray images for the vet to make a diagnosis.

Our portable ultrasound machine enables us to see the organs inside your pet whilst conscious (e.g. pregnancy diagnosis or in very sick animals unsuitable for anaesthesia), or combined with x-ray to give a faster, more accurate diagnosis.

Laser Therapy

We offer a unique service of Laser therapy. Laser therapy is a non-invasive treatment. It involves applying a therapeutic dose of light to damaged tissue, which leads to cellular response from the cells, promoting increased production of ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate) which in turn causes increased energy transfer within the cell.

Laser therapy can be used to help patients with arthritis, chronic pain, post operative wound healing and many more. This can be discussed further with your Vet.

Operating Theatre

We have a modern operating theatre with multiparameter monitoring machine and the safest anaesthetics available. Our theatre is minimalistic to prevent any risk of infection. The theatre is cleaned daily, after each procedure and at the end of the day and is also deep cleaned every week. No one is allowed to enter the operating theatre without appropriate personal protective equipment for infection control.

Electrocardiogram (ECG)

ECG allows us to assess the electrical activity of the heart enabling us to rapidly diagnose cardiac cases and send on to cardiac specialists or as a monitoring device during anaesthesia.

Anaesthetic Facilities

We all worry about our pet’s safety when we are told that they require anaesthesia. Even procedures requiring minimal sedation still involve anaesthetic drugs. It is extremely important to gain as much information regarding your pet’s health as possible prior to anaesthesia to allow us to anticipate any problems and tailor a suitable drug regime for your pet’s needs.

Please inform us of any illness, increased thirst, cough, recent unexplained weight loss, poor exercise tolerance or history of seizures, if your pet is to receive sedation or anaesthesia.

We adhere to very strict protocols within the practice with respect to care of elderly animals and provision of safe anaesthesia with good post-operative pain control.

Older animals:

We recommend routine intravenous fluid therapy to all animals over eight years old receiving anaesthesia. If you do not know the exact age of your pet it is better to assume that they are older and give them fluids.
We also recommend a pre anaesthetic blood test for senior pets.

Why do we do this?

All the drugs and gases we use to keep animals asleep cause a decrease in blood pressure. This means that when your pet is asleep it has greatly reduced blood flow to vital organs such as the kidney and brain. If these organs receive less oxygen from the blood than normal, then they may be permanently damaged as a result.
To prevent this happening we give your pet intravenous fluids to help maintain better blood flow to vital organs and to keep blood pressure within safe limits. We can also measure your pets blood pressure during anaesthesia to make sure that all is well.