To All our Valued Clients
We are writing to inform you that we are reducing the amount of out of hours service we will be providing.
Please read below for further details of the changes.
Why is this change necessary?
The changing nature of the veterinary sector means that dedicated emergency and critical care out of hours centres are becoming more common, and the corporatisation of the veterinary sector over the last 10 years means that a lot of practices are branches that funnel into their own 24-hour hospital.
As a proudly independent veterinary practice, committed to providing exceptional levels of care, this change has increased the pressures on our team significantly.
Increased call and treatment volumes as other local practices stopped providing their out of hours services, a sustained increase in the shortage of veterinarians and qualified veterinary nurses, and more recently, the difficulties caused by the pandemic, have all had their negative impacts.
The ability to recruit and retain suitably qualified, quality staff has become increasingly difficult.
It is very important to us that our team can provide you with the gold standard service you expect for your pets, and we do this by making sure we have sufficient vets and qualified veterinary nurses with experience in the different services we offer available to you.
Initially we moved to the hybrid emergency service as a result of one of our vets leaving; we now have two qualified nurses departing shortly, which compromises our ability to provide a consistent out of hours emergency service. Stretching our existing staff thinly in order to maintain it could compromise our service and availability during the day.
The veterinary sector as a whole has an extremely high attrition rate with many qualified staff leaving the profession entirely (as an indication, 40% of new veterinary graduates leave the industry within a few years of qualifying).
This is down to several reasons, but one of the most often-mentioned are due to work-life balance and burnout. And, with increasing numbers of practices able to offer positions with no out of hours or weekend commitments, or rotas that are 1 in 12 weekends compared to our average 1 in 4, we are not able to compete when it comes to attracting new staff, especially with weekdays and weekends on call that need to be covered.
Recruitment is not just an issue faced by us, it is a problem that affects the whole industry, but unfavourable working schedules make this even more difficult.
We need to protect our staff from burnout.
The work-life balance we mention above ties in with the mental health crisis in the veterinary industry.
While it is a rewarding job that those working in the industry are passionate about, increasing demands and expectations from clients, emotional investment in the pets we treat and their outcomes, and the heartbreak when we work so hard to save a patient only to have them not make it – these are just some of the factors that can contribute to a host of mental health difficulties.
As an example of the scale of this problem, the suicide rate is at least four times higher in the profession than in the general population and higher than other medical professions.
This makes it very important that our whole team has time where they can switch off, gain perspective, process the highs and lows of the day, spend time with their own families and pets and come into work feeling refreshed and ready to provide you with the gold standard care, support, advice and treatment that you and your pets deserve, and that we love giving.
It is vital to us to safeguard the quality of our day-to-day services, to ensure that your pets have fully trained and qualified staff treating them at every junction, and in order to do this, we need the local dedicated emergency and critical care out of hours providers to offer more of their service on our behalf.
We have always been able to offer a range of services and treatment options from experienced staff members that rival the offerings of many larger practices, and we would like to protect our ability to continue to provide these.
What does this mean for the out of hours service?
Monday – Friday
We will be open as usual from 08:30 until 18:00, and we will provide our own emergency service between 18:00 and 19:00, to cover the gap between when we close and VetsNow Eastbourne and Tunbridge Wells open.
The VetsNow team will be your emergency service provider between 19:00 and 08:30 (overnight).
Saturday
We will be open as usual from 08:30 – 11:00, and we will provide our own emergency service between 11:00 and 18:00.
The VetsNow team will be your emergency service provider between 18:00 and 08:30 (overnight).
Sunday
We will provide our own emergency service between 08:30 – 18:00.
The VetsNow team will be your emergency service provider between 18:00 and 08:30 (overnight).
We have examined our out of hours statistics and determined that this is when we take the largest volume of calls, so we will be able to still help you in the majority of emergency cases.
When will this change take effect?
This change will take effect from Monday 12th July 2021.
If your pet needs veterinary care outside our opening hours, just call our usual number of 01435 864422.
When we are on duty, our answering service will take a message and our duty vet will call you back. Otherwise, you will be diverted through to VetsNow, who will make the appropriate arrangements with you.
You do not need to call VetsNow directly, you will be put through to them automatically when our team is off duty.
What if my pet is an in-patient at the practice?
If your pet is an in-patient with us, that is, hospitalised overnight, we will be keeping them with us and providing their overnight care in the same way we always have.
For the cases that need intense monitoring, we have always provided the option of transferring them to VetsNow as we do not employ waking night staff.
What if my pet is hospitalised at VetsNow?
If your pet must be hospitalised at VetsNow, it will work a little differently.
VetsNow do not offer 24-hour hospitalisation, as they use existing veterinary practices who resume their work in the morning.
In most cases, you will collect your pet from VetsNow in the morning and bring them to us where we will then look after them until they are well enough to go home, without having to transfer them back and forth if they need to stay in for multiple nights, as many local practices do.
This may be different in cases that require intense monitoring or where it would be a risk to your pet to move them, but this will be discussed with you on a case-by-case basis and recommendations made based on the best interests of your pet, as has always been our philosophy.
What can I do to reduce the impact this change will have on my pet?
It is important that when your pet is developing symptoms, that you contact us as soon as you notice that something is wrong so we can advise you on the best course of action.
A number of our out of hours calls could have been seen during our normal working hours, had we been telephoned earlier in the development of symptoms.
These symptoms are more subtle than the usual situations most people think of as a typical emergency and to explain them here would make for even longer reading, so please follow our Facebook page where we will be describing some of these scenarios to raise awareness.
We hope that you can understand why we have made this decision and that we remain dedicated to your pet’s care. We appreciate your continued support.
If you have any specific queries which we have not answered in this letter, please email our Practice Manager Donné, at donne.stam@heathfieldvets.co.uk where she will be happy to provide more information.
Kind regards from all the team at Heathfield Vets
Donné Stam
Practice Manager
