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Vets4Pets has announced that it is piloting a 'revolutionary' new 24/7 service at its practices in Rayleigh in Essex, Rustington in Sussex and Bournemouth in Dorset.
The company says that clients of the new 24/7 clinics will be able to have their pets seen and treated at any time by the same team, with the same level of service and at the same price as daytime treatment.
Research carried out by Vets4Pets showed that pet owners struggle to fit visits into their busy working lives, so the 24 hour practices will offer consultations up to 10:00pm and allow clients to drop pets off early in the morning, before traditional practices open.
In addition, the 24/7 clinics will see emergency and routine cases around the clock at no extra cost and will provide care for pets that need to be hospitalised overnight. Vets4Pets says that the practices are equipped with in-house surgical facilities, lab, pharmacy, digital x-ray and ultrasound, and will have a veterinary surgeon and nurse on-site at all times, so its clients will get the highest standard of care.
Clients of other practices within the group will also be able to use these facilities if their own vet feels their pet would benefit from overnight care and is within driving distance of a 24/7 practice.
Kirsty Bridger MRCVS, Joint Venture Partner at Rayleigh Vets4Pets said: “We have been telling our clients about 24/7 for the last few weeks and we have only received positive responses. The perceived increase level of service has been so well received and customers are delighted that we will be offering out of hours services with no extra charge. This is about listening to what our clients need and providing them with more convenience and excellent service however and whenever we can.”
Sally Hopson, CEO of the Vet Group said: “All of us at Vets4Pets are focused on leading innovation in the veterinary sector, and as our clients live increasingly busy lives, these 24/7 pilot practices are our way of helping them manage their hectic schedules, while also ensuring that pets in need of urgent treatment can be seen at any time. We are very excited about the potential of our 24/7 practices and our ability to offer customers extended quality, service and convenience of veterinary care.”
VetNurse.co.uk asked Vets4Pets some questions about the new 24/7 practices:
VetNurse: Is V4P going to offer an OOH referral service to other practices?V4P: As this is a pilot, initially Rayleigh will only be offering this service to other practices within the VetGroup. However, once we understand more about how the model works, we may open the service to other practices, particularly in areas where there are few or no other options for them to outsource OOH cover.
VetNurse: How is V4P able to offer OOH consultations at the same price as daytime consults?V4P: At Vets4Pets we care about offering our clients the best service we can. We believe that it's important that clients can access veterinary care at all times of the day or night without prohibitive surcharges. The 24/7 business model is built around this concept. This is clearly a significant change from the traditional way of thinking about out of hours care within the industry and we think clients and their pets will benefit.
VetNurse: How will it affect the quality of life of the vets & nurses working at the practices?V4P: We have thought carefully about the rotas that the vets and nurses will be working. We've looked at best practice within the veterinary industry and in other industries which work around the clock and we have developed guidelines based on these benchmarks which will then be flexed depending on the requirements of each individual team.
VetNurse: Does V4P think others will follow?V4P: We hope this is something that will expand across our own group once we've completed the initial pilot phase. We believe it's the right thing to do for our clients and for their pets. This is a new way of thinking about out of hours care and we're lucky to be able to work with forward thinking Joint Venture Partners who are putting their clients at the centre of their thinking. If others follow the model, that can only be a good thing for pet owners and for pets.
VetNurse: Does this threaten Vets Now?V4P: We work with Vets Now in many of our practices and we hope to continue to have a positive working relationship in the future. VetsNow have a different and well established business model. Our objective is simply to offer our clients and their pets the best levels of care that we can by being able to provide them with the same level of service at the same price at any time of day or night.
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in reply to Dawn - I don't think it will be too much of a problem to the average practice in all honesty - I can see it being a bigger problem to V4P with staff retention, the amount of bad debtors it will attract and just being able to maintain the service in the event they decide to do it. I think it will cost them dear
I wonder what damage it will do to vets in their local area. Loyalty is a thing of the past and if it's cheaper down the road at a time that suits in my experience you loose a client.........
I worry about all these big corporate companies. I feel they put pressure on the independent vet surgeries to follow suit- how can we not charge ooh fee's? Staff still have to be paid! Maylane is totally right- every company that offers an ooh fee expect to be paid that extra amount, this is just corporate companies putting yet more pressure on the smaller vets. Hmmm I wonder where they will add the hidden charges.
I'm concerned this under values the service provided by good OOH clinics. Getting good experienced qualified staff to work nights is expensive (quite rightfully) Why should the public not pay more for OOH? If you want a plumber/ builder / dentist etc OOH you pay for it. I can see later consults and earlier starts could be useful but hardly a new concept. Not sure how you can pay decent wages without charging more and if they're paying the same they can't afford good staff.
I agree with Sal. I think this could potentially be a good idea to increase better inpatient care and extended consulting hours for owners. However, providing 24hr care needs to paid for and valued therefore I think they should still have an increased charge if out of hours. It is only going to put pressure on other practices to try and full fill already increasing client demands.
but looking on the bright side I would say a very high proportion of our difficult payers (bad debts) are one off clients that demand to be seen out of hours even if it isn't an emergency (but its not always easy to tell that over the phone) . They run up a bill for treatment and you never see them again. It's just about impossible to get a history from their previous practice in advance even if they do tell you they have one -and most don't (and that's dependant on them giving you the right name and address) because its closed and the only reasons they have picked you is that you are the first vets they come across in the phone book/internet that they dont already owe money to, you don't use an OOH provider (ie you are cheaper) or their previous practice has fired them through non payment of bills. So from that point of view I reckon V4P will be doing some of us a huge favour
and bang goes quality of life for veterinary staff - this is going to further undervalue veterinary care if it rolls out