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Facilities

Some helpful information

Surgical procedures can be booked at either our Woking or Chertsey surgeries, as we have fully equipped sterile operating theatres, with separate preparation areas at both sites. Our vets are experienced over a wide range of procedures and you can be assured of the excellence of their standards.

Assisting the vets is a team of highly competent and experienced veterinary nurses, who will also care for your pet before, during and on recovery from any procedure.

Please see below for more information on the services and procedures we offer.

If your pet requires overnight care, he/she will be hospitalised at our main branch in Woking. Here, your pet will receive the highest levels of care from our team of vets and nurses. The vet in charge of your case will keep you informed throughout, and of course you are more than welcome to telephone the surgery during opening hours and speak to the kennel nurse caring for your pet.

When a pet is hospitalised overnight, the level of monitoring the pet receives during the night is determined by that animal’s specific medical requirements. Each animal is assessed individually on its particular needs and a treatment plan devised, this may include numerous monitoring checks during the night. Please note that we do not routinely have staff on site throughout the night, your pet may be left for short periods – but only when deemed safe and appropriate to do so.

Full hospitalisation charts detailing the medications received, nursing care, examinations, and diagnostics undertaken are kept for each animal.  

Owner visits to hospitalised pets are encouraged in most cases. Please ask to speak to the kennel nurse if you would like to discuss this, or any aspect of your pet’s care.

The practice is equipped with an in-house laboratory, enabling us to greatly decrease the time you wait for results of, for example, many blood and urine tests. We use the latest technology in wet chemistry analysers, resulting in reliable data for use in your pet’s diagnosis. Furthermore, our laboratory also allows us 24-hour access to test equipment, vital if your pet attends the surgery in an out-of-hours emergency.

The prospect of your pet requiring an anaesthetic can be a worrying time for any owner. At this practice, we adopt the highest standards in anaesthesia protocol to help ensure a safe and stress-free outcome for your pet. We use the latest anaesthetic drugs, with each anaesthetic tailored to the individual pet’s requirements

All pets are given a full health check when admitted and pre-anaesthetic blood tests are offered and highly recommended. Additional anaesthetic needs for any patient – e.g. intravenous fluid therapy support – is provided where required, all of which will be discussed with you on admitting your pet.

Each animal has its own dedicated anaesthesia nurse who monitors and maintains the anaesthetic throughout the procedure. Any concerns can then be immediately noted and brought to the attention of the vet. The vet can concentrate fully on the procedure in hand, knowing that full anaesthetic monitoring by the nurse is taking place.

Full monitoring equipment is available including ECG, temperature, heart rate, respiration rate, capnograph and blood pressure. The whole team is trained in anaesthesia emergency techniques and procedures.

If you have any concerns regarding your pet’s care during a surgical procedure, or the procedure itself, then please speak to one of our vets or nurses who will be happy to help.

Ultrasonography, radiography (x-rays) and endoscopy are all available at the practice to allow our vets the opportunity to view inside the body of your pet without using surgery. These non-invasive techniques can be used to diagnose a great many conditions and of course are much kinder to your pet.

Ultrasonography
Here the vet uses an ultrasound probe over your pet's body. This creates an image on a moitor that allows the vet to see inside your pet. This is particularly useful for looking at small areas of soft tissue such as the body organs. As the image created is moving and viewed in real time, the vet can see, for example, the heart as it beats.

Ultrasound examinations are pain-free and can usually be performed without sedation or anaesthesia, depending on the condition and the temperament of the animal. In order for this to be performed, the vet will need to shave an area of fur to allow good contact between the probe and your pet's body. 

Radiography 
This technique uses x-rays to create an image of the inside of your pet. Although it is a pain-free technique, it is very important that your pet remains completely motionless in whichever positions we need to place them. For this reason we usually need to sedate or anaesthetise your pet. 

In order to keep anaesthetics as short as possible, and to allow the highest quality images to be reduced, the practice uses digital radiography. This means the image is produced on a computer screen within seconds. Digital radiography also has the added advantage that we can email the image to specialist cosultants for immediate further diagnosis if this is required. 

Endoscopy
An endoscope is a long tube-like piece of equipment with a camera at the end. It can be inserted into your pet e.g. via the mouth, and enables the vet to view areas inside your pet, such as the stomach or lungs. 

Although not painful, endoscopy may be a little uncomfortable, and it is important that the animal does not bite down on an endoscope placed in the mouth. For this reason, sedation or anaesthesia is always used for endoscopic procedures.