*Emergency Care at Pennine Vets* Starting from Thursday 16th October, we will be transferring our out-of-hours emergency care to Pets A&E on The Rock, Bury. This has not been an easy decision to make. We have prided ourselves on providing a complete service to our clients, including out of hours cover, but we have had to make this difficult decision for a number of reasons: • The working time directive will soon limit the hours our employees can work. • The health and safety of our employees • Our ability to provide the highest level of care during the day – impossible if we have been working during the night • To improve the work/life balance of all the vets at the practice
Our aim is still to provide the best quality care during our opening hours and we are trying to limit the impact this change will have on our clients by having an extra Sunday morning surgery at Tottington between 10.30 – 11.30 . This will allow us to see urgent or ongoing cases over the weekend. We do ask our clients to inform us as soon as possible if their pet is ill so that we can accommodate their care during normal opening hours whenever possible. As you will be aware, Pennine Vets is handing its out of hours emergency cover to another practice – Pets A+E in central Bury. After 5 years of maintaining our own service, 3 ½ of which Ian and Gillian Mostyn provided alone, it has been a very difficult decision to reach. However, we have had to reconsider our position for the reasons below: • The Working Time Directive - European law is being introduced and the maximum working hours of our employees will include time spent on-call. This will make it illegal for our vets to work a weekend on-call or do more than 2 nights in a week. All smaller vets practices will be affected by this law, now going through the European Parliament. It will make it impossible for Pennine Vets to run our own emergency service. • It is very difficult to maintain our high standards of care during the day when our vets are tired after working through the night. We do not want to compromise the quality of care we provide. • Health & Safety law means we must protect our staff at all times. Much of our emergency work is from new, unregistered clients and vets are being increasingly targeted for drugs & money. Our employees are understandably nervous about meeting with strangers during the night.
? *The Solutions (& our promises) * We are open until 6:30pm each night, on Saturday mornings until at least 12:30pm and we will be introducing a new Sunday morning open surgery 10.30 – 11.30am. The new Sunday surgery is for urgent cases only, does not require an appointment but consultations will carry a surcharge. We would like to encourage all clients to visit us during these hours when we are fully staffed and can best serve your pet’s needs. The number of true emergencies that we see is relatively small and these cases will be dealt with very quickly and efficiently at the dedicated out of hours emergency clinic at Pets A&E on The Rock, Bury. They are fully staffed at all hours with comprehensive facilities including intensive & critical care facilities throughout the night. We are keen to care for our patients whenever possible so please contact us if you have any worries about your pet so we can arrange to see you while we are open and fully staffed. Later appointments that require further care will still be treated at the practice unless we feel they require constant supervision or intensive care throughout the night. We will continue to care for our own in-patients, and a vet will be working every night and weekend to care for ongoing cases. We will not move hospitalised patients except in rare instances where we are not able to provide any specialised care they require. Pets A+E will treat or stabilise your pet, and their care will then be transferred back to Pennine Vets. The emergency clinic will immediately provide us with a comprehensive report of the care provided so that we are fully aware of any further treatment required. We will take over care of any of our patients seen at Pets A&E as soon as they are fit to go home or travel to us. We sincerely hope that this will not cause any inconvenience or distress to our clients, and that we have answered any questions you may have. However, if you have any further concerns please contact Ian or Gillian and we will be pleased to discuss these changes. Common Emergencies The following is a list of common emergencies that need to be seen as soon as possible. This is not a complete list and you should always phone us if you feel your animal is an emergency case. Road Traffic Accidents Seizures lasting more than 3 or 4 minutes (look at a watch or clock) Bleeding that can't be stopped quickly by apply pressure with a clean cloth Breathing difficulties Broken bones, especially if the bone has broken the skin Stomach bloat in large breed dogs Dogs / Cats straining and pushing to give birth for more than 1 hour Collapsed animals that aren't getting up within 10 minutes Loss of conciousness
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