Terms & conditions

Anton Vets

Terms of Business

Anton Vets is a member of CVS (UK) Limited group of veterinary practices, registered in England and Wales with registration number 3777473 and whose registered office address is at CVS House, Owen Road, Diss, Norfolk, IP22 4ER. This document sets out the terms of the contract established between us (CVS (UK) Limited) and you (the registered animal owner or individual requesting veterinary services) which comes into being when you register your animal with our veterinary practice or when you ask us to provide veterinary services.

Should you have any queries regarding any aspect of these terms of business please do no hesitate to ask us for further clarification.

General Terms (applying to the provision of all goods and services)

Estimates

Estimates are provided verbally either at the time of booking the appointment or during the consultation itself. Written estimates are available on request and can be emailed or printed. Estimates for surgery or procedures will be given to you at the time of admission and will be included on your pets admission form, you can ask for a copy of this estimate for your records. All estimates given are only approximate, and the final fee could be higher or lower than this estimate depending on complication encountered during treatment and your pets response to treatment. We will endeavour to contact you as soon as possible if we have reason to believe that the costs could be significantly higher than the estimate.

Fees

All fees for services and prices for goods (including food and drugs) are subject to VAT at the applicable rate. Prices for goods are as marked or notified at the point of purchase, a full fee breakdown will appear on your invoice.
Fees for services include our professional fees in respect of the veterinary services provided along with the cost of any drugs, materials or consumables used in the provision of the service. Professional fees vary according to the time spent on the case and the level of expertise required or the staff looking after your pet.

Payments

We require payment at the time services are provided or products are dispensed. You will be advised exactly when payments are due depending upon the nature of the services that we provide to you, but you should expect to make payments at the end of each consultation and upon the discharge of your pet from our care. If your pet is hospitalised we will phone you each day to discuss their progress and the fees incurred, in the event of long hospital stays we may require stage payments during their stay.

Payment is accepted by cash, debit/credit card or BACs transfer.

Please note that if a pet is registered with our practice, we will assume that any person other than the registered pet owner who may bring the pet in for treatment, is duly authorised by the registered owner to seek treatment for the pet and to incur costs for which the registered pet owner will be liable. Where a pet is not registered with our practice we will assume that the individual requesting treatment accepts liability for all costs incurred.

If you become unable to pay your account according to these standard terms, this must be discussed with the veterinary practice as soon as possible.

If you do not pay your invoice when it falls due we shall take such action as we consider appropriate to recover our fees, this may include engaging a third party debt collection agency to recover the outstanding fees and / or instigating proceedings against you in the county court. In such cases, any costs levied by the debt collection agency will be added on to the outstanding balance owed by you and/or we will seek to recover any legal expenses from you. Please note that the use of debt collection agencies and the county court could affect your future credit rating.

We shall be entitled to suspend the provision of further good and/or services until you have paid any outstanding sums in full. Where we consider it appropriate to do so, we may require payment on account before goods and/or services are provided.

Prescriptions

Prescriptions are available from this practice. You will be advised of the prescription charge when you contact the practice. Prescription charges are only applied when you request a prescription from us but go elsewhere to have the prescription filled and a prescription charge is applied for each item that you request. The period of time the prescription covers is dependent on the medication prescribed. The maximum period a prescription may cover is for 6 months as it is required that a vet reassesses your pet every 6 months to confirm the medication remains suitable for your pet. There will be a charge for the vet re-examination which will be provided to you on enquiry. The exception for this is prescriptions for flea and worm treatments which may be issued for a maximum of 12 months.

Please note that a prescription may not always be appropriate, for example if your pet is an in-patient or immediate treatment is required or the medication is a controlled drug.
We require 48 hours notice for any requests for a repeat or written prescription.

We are unable to accept the return of any medication as such items cannot be resold. Please ensure you check your medication or written prescription carefully before leaving the practice to ensure it is correct. If you wish us to safely dispose of any unwanted medication we are happy to do so, free of charge.

 

Client records

Client and clinical records, and any other such similar documents (including, but not limited to digital imaging results), are and shall remain the property of CVS (UK) Ltd. Copies of clinical records may be passed to another veterinary surgeon on request should you move surgeries. We never discuss or pass confidential records to any 3rd party other than if you move surgeries or are referred to another veterinary surgeon and have given your consent for us to do so.

Liability

Our liability in respect of all and any claims, damages or losses arising in respect of the goods and/or services provided by us or arising in connection with any attendance at our practice or attendance at any property by one of our vets shall be limited in accordance with our insurance cover. In the event of any uninsured claims, damages or losses our liability shall be limited to the value of the goods and/or services to which the claim, damages or loss relates.

Data Protection

When you register your animal with our practice or request that we provide veterinary services we will collect personal data about you and, where relevant your employees and/or agents. We will only collect the data that we need to perform the services, take payment or contact you such as names, contact details and where required, some financial details. Please note that we may pass your details to debt collection agencies or our legal advisers for the purpose of recovering unpaid fees if you do not pay invoices when they fall due. From time to time we may also use your contact details to provide you with information about new services or special offers offered by the CVS group or selected third parties.

We comply with the Data Protection Act 1998 and will take reasonable precautions to ensure that your data is kept securely, used appropriately and is not shared with third parties except as required for the purposes detailed above. You are entitled to be provided with details of the data that we hold about you upon written request.

Complaints

We pride ourselves on offering a high quality service and take all customer complaints seriously. Should we not meet your expectations on any aspect of our service then please write in the first instance to the Clinical Director or the consulting vet as soon as possible. If requested, a copy of the CVS Small Animal Complaints procedure can be forwarded to you. If a satisfactory resolution cannot be reached then please forward your complaint in writing to:

Complaints
CVS (UK) Limited, CVS House, Owen Road, Diss, Norfolk IP22 2ER

A copy of the full complaint policy can be found on the website.

Insurance

We strongly recommend that you consider insuring your pet against unexpected illness or accidents.

We are able to process insurance forms for clients for both Direct and Indirect claims.

For indirect claims (where the client settles the account and the insurance company pays the client directly). We are happy to process insurance claims for all indirect claims and we do not charge an administration fee for this service.

For direct claims (where the insurance company pays Anton Vets directly).We are happy to process direct claims for new conditions that exceed £250 and for continuation claims above £100. For clients who wish to make a direct claim, they will be asked to sign a direct insurance claim form declaration at the time of treatment to confirm the details of their insurance policy, and will be asked to pay the fixed excess at the time of treatment. We charge an administration fee of £20 for all new direct insurance claims and a fee of £10 for all direct continuation claims. Full details of our insurance policy can be found at reception or on our website.

Home visits

In most cases, your pet will receive better treatment if it is bought into the surgery, where we have the equipment, facilities and staff necessary to treat them. However there are some cases when it may be preferable to provide treatment at your home. We endeavour to come out to your home at your convenience but we ask that you call the surgery in the morning so we can arrange this around other duties. There may be times when we are unable to provide a home visit due to staff or transportation issues and will advise you if this is the case and discuss alternative options available to you, we ask that you give us as much notice as possible if you would like a home visit so we can plan appropriately for this. There is an additional charge for a home visit, this is dependent on the milage from Anton Vets and an estimate will be provided to you when you call to book a visit.

Transportation

If your animal requires transportation it shall be your responsibility to arrange this unless we are transporting an animal from a home visit which has been pre-arranged. We are happy to supply you with a list of local taxi companies that are happy to transport animals should you require help arranging transportation for your pet.

MiNightVet

We have chosen to use MiNightVet as our emergency care provider for dog and cat emergencies outside of our standard opening hours. MiNight Vet Winchester is based at Mildmay Veterinary Hospital in Winchester. They operate under the terms of business which can be found on the Mildmay website.

We will see all exotic pet emergencies on site at Anton Vets out-of hours. Our on-call emergency vet for exotic pet emergencies can be contacted by calling the usual practice telephone number and following the prompt for option 2 on the answer machine.

The current out of hours consultation fee for an exotic pet seen at Anton Vets starts from £150 (before 10pm) and £210 (10pm – 8am)

The current out of hours consultation fee for a dog/cat at MiNightVet starts from £124 (before 11pm) and £194 (11pm – 8am)

MiNight Vets can be contacted on 01962 858414