His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales has visited Pool House Equine Clinic to mark the opening of its new, purpose-built facility in Fradley, near Lichfield.

This multimillion pound centre will support the provision of advanced first opinion and referral equine services in the Midlands. 

Senior Partner Richard Stephenson said: "It was a great honour and pleasure to have His Royal Highness visit our new premises, and our staff eagerly anticipated meeting Prince Charles and showing him the wonderful facilities we now have."

Amongst these are a Fujifilm SonoSite Edge II portable ultrasound system. Richard added: "Pool House is a well-known practice – we’ve been in existence for over 150 years – and we have developed a reputation as a specialist equine imaging centre, with radiography, ultrasound and MRI capabilities. The new facility has been designed to give us increased theatre capacity and stabling, and we needed an additional ultrasound system to match this expansion."

"The demands of equine practice mean that ultrasound is often required in difficult circumstances, and we need systems that can cope with extreme temperatures, dust, straw, mud, water and the occasional knock. Many pieces of equipment used in veterinary medicine were originally intended for a human clinical environment, so can’t stand up to the rigors of our work – they’re simply not fit for purpose. However, SonoSite systems are perfect for us; they’re robust, highly portable and very intuitive to use, which is important for intermittent ultrasound users."

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