Emergencies

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*****IN AN EMERGENCY, PLEASE CALL 07592131270. Call us immediately if you think your pet is in danger.*****

LIFE-THREATENING EMERGENCIES include: trouble breathing, profuse bleeding (constant dripping, pooling or spurting of blood), seizure/fitting, severe pain (screaming/crying, biting when touched), a large-breed dog retching and bloating, a broken limb, collapse/paralysis, poisoning, or a male cat having difficulty urinating. If your pet does NOT show these symptoms, please email us with 'URGENT' in the headline, and you will be contacted very shortly. Please do NOT call the out-of-hours mobile number unless you need genuine emergency care.

Please note that the emergency phone is not answered on the first ring, and we request that if you do have a life-threatening emergency, that you call for a second time right away to indicate this. The reason for this is that this is a phone that is personally attended to by the same vet 24/7, 365 days a year and receives many calls which are not emergencies.

Our emergency care will initially consist of advice for your pet. Once we have established what the problem is, you may be referred on to either another regular veterinary practice, or an out-of-hours veterinary provider. Alternatively, we may provide the care at our office. If the problem can wait until opening hours, we will advise you of this.

The costs associated with emergency care vary, but tend to be higher than routine vet fees. A visit to a dedicated out of hours (OOH) provider could cost between £99 and £400, and any treatment or tests would be additional. We strongly recommend that you obtain insurance for your pet to help with these potential costs.

We provide mostly routine, preventative care and are limited in what we can provide for urgent medical problems. For example, we have pain relieving drugs, bandaging materials and IV fluid set up, but we do not have an X-ray machine, ultrasound or drugs that are not related to spa and neuter. We generally see emergencies that arise as a complication of the services we provide; for example, a problem in the post-operative period such as bleeding, infection or wound breakdown. If your pet has an unrelated issue, we may not be best placed to attend to it.  Please contact your regular vet for this if you are registered with one; if not, we do recommend that all our clients are registered with a local practice.

 Of course, we have a duty to provide first aid and pain relief, and if we are the clinic best placed to provide this at the time, we will. However, it would be more convenient and less stressful for owners and pets if they went straight to a facility that could provide any follow up care as well as the first aid, to avoid you being transferred from our clinic. 

If you are registered with a vet in our local area, it is likely that they will have an arrangement with one of the following providers that they will signpost you to:

• New Priory Vets: 10 The Deanway, Brighton, BN18QR; 01273540430

• Medivet Forest Row: Station Road, Forest Row, East Sussex, RH185DW; 01342824452

An alternative provider, who will accept clients registered with any vet, or not registered, is:

• Arthur Lodge Vets, 14 Brighton Road, Horsham, West Sussex RH135BE; 01444252964