Grange Vets Ltd Terms and Conditions
Thank you for entrusting the care of your pet to Grange Veterinary Hospital and the branches: Hawarden Park Veterinary Centre; Alyn Veterinary Centre; Brunswick Veterinary Surgery; Quay Veterinary Centre and Station House Veterinary Centre.
By registering with the Practice you are agreeing to these terms and conditions. If you have any queries about them please contact the surgery for clarification.
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Appointments
Appointments can be booked either by calling our main hospital number 01352 700087 or one of our branches, in person or online via our website Grangevets.com. Appointments are generally 15 minutes long so if you need to discuss several issues with the vet you may be advised to book a
follow-up appointment. A consult fee applies to each appointment, including re-checks.
Please give at least 24 hours’ notice if you cannot attend your appointment to avoid a consultation fee. Missed appointments will result in either a consultation fee added to your account or if you are a member of our Healthy Pet Club a free consultation will be forfeited. Repeated missed appointments may result in the termination of your registration with us.
Reminders are sent as a complimentary service to our clients. Grange Veterinary Hospital accepts no liability for any loss, damage or costs which may result from the failure of a client to receive reminders.
Payment in full will be required after every consultation and on patient discharge.
24-Hour Emergency Service
We are available for emergencies 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for all of our registered clients. If you have an emergency when the surgery is closed, call the usual number 01352 700087. This will take you through to the out-of-hours member of staff. The staff will ask for details of the emergency and contact the on-call veterinary surgeon if required. If your pet needs to see the on-call veterinary surgeon outside our normal opening hours an additional charge will be made, currently £165 for an out-of-hours supplement for our registered patients.
Hospitalisation / Inpatients
Should it be necessary to hospitalise your pet in the hospital (pets are not hospitalised in any of the branch surgeries), they will be checked on a regular basis by the duty member of staff. The frequency and timing of the checks will be appropriate to the condition of your pet. A member of staff is onsite at all times.
Veterinary services will be provided by suitably trained or qualified staff. This will depend on the nature of the veterinary service required and may involve staff as part of their training and development eg. Student Vets, Student Nurses, and Animal Nursing Assistants under the supervision of a suitably trained member of the team. You have the right at any time for them not to be involved in the care of your pet.
Home visits
The best facilities for the treatment of your pet are at the hospital, where we have the equipment and staff to give your pet a higher level of attention. We recommend that, where possible, you bring your pet to the surgery for an appointment. If this is not possible and a home visit is more appropriate, please call the surgery to request a visit. Please give us as much notice as possible because visiting pets takes much longer than at the surgery and we may not have a veterinary surgeon available to accommodate your request. In view of the time taken for home visits, there is an additional charge made.
Ownership of Records
Case records and digital radiographs are the property of and will be retained by Grange Veterinary Hospital.
Copies, with a summary of the clinical history, will be passed on to any other veterinary surgeon taking over the care of your pet, at the request of the veterinary practice. For insured clients, clinical histories are a standard condition of insurance contracts and will be passed on to your company at the time of a claim or when requested by the company. If you would like a copy of these records please contact the Practice to arrange this. We will endeavour to do this within a reasonable timeframe however we reserve the right to charge a fee or request that you settle any outstanding balances before doing so.
All personal and payment information is subject to and complies with the General Data Protection Regulations. Further details are included in our Practice Privacy Policy on our website at grangevets.com/privacy-policy
Prescriptions and Repeat Prescriptions
All Veterinary Practices are required to strictly adhere to current legislation. Your veterinary surgeon may only prescribe prescription medication (POM-Vs) for animals under their care. It is a legal requirement that a veterinary surgeon has examined the pet regularly, our policy is every 3-6 months depending on the health condition or medication concerned. There is a consultation charge for this examination.
Should you require a repeat prescription for your pet please give us AT LEAST 48 hours notice. Our staff will check the records and either make you an appointment for your pet to be seen or arrange to dispense the medication. We endeavour to be as competitive as possible on prices of the medicines we dispense.
You may buy POM-V medication from alternative sources by requesting a written prescription. These are available for a prescription charge. A written prescription is not appropriate for an animal that is an inpatient or if immediate or urgent treatment is necessary.
Fees
All fees, diets, and medicine charges are subject to VAT at the current rate. Fee levels are determined by the time spent on a case and according to the medicines, materials, and consumables used. If requested, you will receive a detailed fee breakdown for every consultation, surgical procedure or transaction with us. We accept card payments (either in person or over the phone) and cash, however, we no longer accept cheques. We are unable to offer credit or payment plans so please do not ask.
Unregistered or lapsed clients (circa 12 months) will be offered appropriate diagnostic and treatment options. At a minimum, in accordance with RCVS guidelines, this may solely be pain relief or euthanasia, as appropriate. If tests, investigation, treatment, or referral is indicated, our vet will provide an estimate of potential costs which may include admission, fluids, blood tests, and imaging and this may come to £750 to £1500, to be paid prior to any further action.
Estimates of treatment costs
Your vet will discuss all treatment options with you and will be happy to provide you with a written estimate as to the probable costs of a course of treatment or procedure or operation. Please bear in mind that any estimate given can only be approximate- often a pet’s illness will not follow a conventional course.
However, we will do our best to keep you fully informed of costs during the course of the treatment and will do so if the expected fee is to be more than 20% greater than the original estimate.
We will try to contact you on the contact numbers you have given us, if the costs are going to exceed the estimate, however, if you are not contactable we will treat the pet as necessary for the prevention of pain and/or suffering
Settlement Terms
All accounts should be settled in full at the end of the consultation, on the discharge of your pet, or on collection of medicine or diet foods. Any accounts not settled in full by the end of the month (even if the account is part of an insurance claim) will receive a statement. Overdue accounts may be referred to our debt collection agency which may incur additional fees and lead to County Court action. Any accounts that are sent to either the debt collection agency or County Court will have their registration immediately withdrawn.
If payment terms are not met, the practice reserves the right to withhold routine treatments, goods, and services until full payment is completed.
Return of Medicines
We are unable to accept any unused medication for a refund because of legislation under the Veterinary Medicines Directorate. We can however accept them for correct and safe disposal at no charge.
Pet Insurance
Grange Veterinary Hospital strongly supports the principle of insuring your pet against unexpected illness or injury. It remains your responsibility to choose a policy that provides the level of coverage you require – please read the small print very carefully. Any insurance excess must be paid at the commencement of treatment and any insurance shortfalls must be settled before any further claims are sent or within 7 days of our Insurance Team notifying you that they are due.
Any fees not settled in full by the insurance company and excesses on the policy remain the responsibility of the client.
We are able to provide 4 weeks free insurance for puppies, kittens, and rabbits from 6 weeks to 18 months – please ask our Reception team for further details.
Healthy Pet Club
Grange Vets Healthy Pet Club offers clients a convenient monthly option to pay for their pets‘ essential vaccinations, health checks, flea and worm treatments, etc, and provides a discount for neutering and dental procedures.
We work with Easy Direct Debits which provides the facility to enable clients to make their monthly direct debit payments.
Membership of the scheme is for a minimum of 12 months, however, if the plan is canceled before the renewal date there may be a balance to pay for treatments and medicines that have exceeded the value of the payments made. Veterinary services may be suspended in the event that an outstanding balance on a Healthy Pet Plan remains unpaid.
General – How we will contact you
Grange Veterinary Hospital may contact you by letter, phone, text or email in order to advise you of the balance on your account, reminders of your pet’s preventative health care, and any marketing which may be of benefit to your pet. Please inform us if you wish no contact to be made but be aware that this will remove our ability to send you any reminders.
Complaints
Grange Veterinary Hospital is committed to providing an outstanding standard of care and service. We provide ongoing training to all of our staff in all aspects of companion animal practice. We are an accredited practice under the Practice Standards Scheme run by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons.
We realise that sometimes things go wrong and there may be occasions when you feel your expectations were not met. When this happens we would like to hear about it so that we can try to put things right. Most problems can be sorted out quickly and easily at the time they arise.
If your complaint cannot be resolved at the time, please contact the Practice Manager, either by letter or by email to [email protected]. We ask you to put the complaint in writing to enable us to investigate it more thoroughly. We will acknowledge your complaint and inform you when you should expect a reply. We will investigate it by talking to the staff involved to find out what happened and what went wrong. We will then make sure you are informed of the outcome and we will do what we can to make sure the problem doesn’t happen again. We are always striving to improve our standards.
Although we always endeavour to respond to a complaint within 14 working days of receipt sometimes this is not possible. In such an instance a member of the team will contact you to update you on the progress of your complaint.
If you are not happy with the outcome, you are always welcome to approach the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons to inform them of your complaint.
Abuse of staff
Our staff are here to provide the highest level of care to your pets so we ask that you treat our team with courtesy and respect.
We reserve the right to terminate the registration of any client who abuses any Grange Vets employee or contractor. Examples of abusive behaviour include using violent or threatening language whether speaking to staff via telephone, email or through our website.
Customer Feedback
We look forward to working with you to keep your pet healthy and happy but, if at any time you have concerns or suggestions, please let us know. We welcome your feedback and can assure you that any issues raised will be appropriately addressed.
Please email your comments to [email protected] or use one of our suggestion/comments cards available from our meet and greet or reception areas. You can also use our online ‘Get in Touch‘ facility on our website at grangevets.com to send us a message, call or visit us.
Variation
Grange Veterinary Hospital Terms and Conditions will be reviewed on a regular basis and we reserve the right to vary any or all of the points included.
