Vets4Pets

RCVSKing

Hi all

I have to say that i think there are lots of interesting notes about Vets4Pets. They are a reputable brand and if you do your research they run a Joint Venture Business putting local vets into their own Business, so it is very much a local person running their own business, just benefitting from purchasing power which is how they get the costs down, saving us all money. If you've done consultancy work as i have in this industry you would know that Vets charge very differently for their services. I recently conducted a nationwide price survey of Veterinary Practices on consultations, vaccines, flea&worm treatments, neutering and dentals and in almost all towns Vets4Pets were around the cheapest on their offering, there were of course exceptions but generally i would say they were overall offering the best value for money (£ terms). We did not mystery shop their services and most clients need to trust the vet they are seeing and this is as important if not more so than the price you pay. If medication or surgery seem expensive in whichever practice you visit, then you need to look at what that product is. There are some "gold standard" medications that are more expensive because they are better quality and will work quicker, thus reducing pain. As for the £45 microchip, actually there are various types and it may be that the practice you visited offer a bio-thermal microchip which can record body temperature as well as identify your pet, these are more expensive than a simple microchip, though i am no expert on whether they are accurate in their readings etc...
My suggestion would be to talk openly with your vet about your concerns and issues and not pre-judge their pricing or ways of extracting cash from you, the realisty would suggest that most vets are not in it for the cash, otherwise they'd be Doctors instead (higher qualification and generally speaking more intelligent).
I hope this helps.

porcupine_2

Hi

I'm glad some one has said something more positive about vets4pets! I have used so many different vets and got such varied service. when I finally registered with vets4pets I was astounded at how professional they were compared to my previous experiences of vets. I have also moved house and found a vets4pets in my area and they are exactly the same!The surgery always looks lovely and the staff seem to be so much more friendly and professional than what I had ever seen before. I have taken advantage of their reduced vaccination costs and some of their other offers, but I have never found anything else to be overpriced? vets are expensive, I think other things seem much more expensive in comparrison? but generally I have found vets4pets to be really good and really reasonable with the added bonus of some good money saving offers in between. I am insured so perhaps that helps.

catlou

I have been reading this thread and was wondering about taking my pup to my local one when he will need a booster jab next year.

I do agree with people about supporting your local vets etc. but I have just phoned around 3 local vets including the one I'm registered with and the boosters vary from £23-£27.

So if I was to go to vets4pets (which is a bit further from me) just for boosters and stick to my own vets for any other things if he lives to say 10-12 years that's a saving of roughly £200 + probably more as the cost of boosters will have increased by then. Also if they closed down or something else happened that I couldn't go to one as long as he has had say three boosters then I wouldn't be out of pocket.

Financially seems like a good deal to me!

porcupine_2

I thought that at first but it's a lot of faffing around! plus, if I keep going to my vets4pets I get to see what other offers they're having that I would have otherwise missed in going to other vets. I don't think they're any higher priced than anyone else but they do have offers that I've never seen anywhere else so overall I think they work out as the most cost effective vets in the long run.

snowman2_2

Company policy at Vets4Pets is to use heavy marketing to boost sales if they are not doing well. The more offers they have, the more billboards they use, that just tells me that they are not doing well and not making (enough) money. Billboards and loss leader vaccines need paying for somewhere. I am not saying that the individual vets and nurses wont be good but such aggressive marketing says a lot about the state of the business.

orlao

I can't speak about Vets4Pets but I do use YourPets which appears to have a similar business model - I always compare it to the supermarkets style of business. Pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap;) on routine vet care (vacs, neutering, blood tests,dentals etc) and refer onto specialists for anything more complicated. It may mean that these types of practice are not suitable if your pets are part of the minority that have serious ongoing conditions that would mean you are being referred on a regular basis or if you personally would like to see the same vet everytime as I would imagine that staff turnover does tend to be higher....

However, the considerable cost savings over a year for a couple of consultations or even just vaccs IMHO more than outweigh the (wasted:rotfl:) attempts at a hard sell and the possible lack of on site OOH service as ther is only one practice in my area that hasn't out sourced OOH already.

Really comes down to you pays your money, you take your choices though.

snowman, I wasn't aware that you could ring any vet for OOH, I always thought you had to be already registered with them?

snowman2_2

You can ring any vet for OOH, an emergency clinic wont mind either way but for a small practice, the vet on-call is likely to have to work the following day. is it fair to wake them up in the middle of the night if you have never been to them before and have no real intention of ever going back to them?

When I did my own on-call, I was more than happy to provide the service for my clients / patients but I resented the 2/3 of the work from people who had never been to me before, unlikely to come back and (especially these ones) the people who didn't bring any money. OOH work is where most vets pick up bad debt so I for one would be happy to see OOH work limited to pre-registered clients only to stop some people taking the mickey. Our genuine clients were often very apologetic to disturb me on a sunday evening or the middle of the night, some new ones would ring me at 3:30am with a problem that had been going on for 4 days, then expect me to wait 90 minutes until they could get to the surgery. I found it very tiring, stressful and damaging to my family life. I did it for 9 years but my quality of life improved no end when I moved to the local OOH service.

Personally, unless they are an OOH clinic, I would always suggest you use your regular vet OOH.

Unity

I just checked today and the £10 vaccination offer is only on until 7th October.

I will be using them, but only because I have two cats and my regular vet - who has vaccinated them every year for the past six years, quoted me £45 each:eek:.

I reckon my regular vet has had more than enough 'customer loyalty' and since it's a saving of £70 for the two, I wouldn't be being very MSE if I didn't use this offer .

I also checked with Westway, who were charging £25 per cat so I'd be interested to know what they are like for the future - since I'd still be saving £40 on the local practice.

snowman2_2

What do they charge extra if you get your dog's anal glands emptied at the same time or nails clipped? Someone told me they charged an extra £14 for their cat's nails clipped but I haven't been able to confirm that. Be interesting to know

capnjack_2

snowman2 wrote: »

What do they charge extra if you get your dog's anal glands emptied at the same time or nails clipped? Someone told me they charged an extra £14 for their cat's nails clipped but I haven't been able to confirm that. Be interesting to know

The quoted me £12 for a nail clipping when I took Woody for his injections.