[Q] Why do we use an out of hours service instead of doing on call ourselves?

[A] There are many reasons for this, and here are just a few of the main ones :

• When you contact the veterinary surgeon, he will be awake, and ready to deal with your problem, and won't have already worked a full day, and maybe have been asleep for 2 or 3 hours.
• Beds Vets staff are specially trained and experienced in emergency veterinary medicine
• Beds Vets Hospital premises are manned throughout the night. It takes about 25 minutes to get there from Milton Keynes, and the staff will be ready to receive you and have had time to set up ready to deal with the problem. It is not possible for us to man our surgery 24 hours a day, there aren't enough of us and if there were, no-one would be able to afford the fees. In a call out situation, by the time the veterinary surgeon has contacted and collected a nurse and got to the surgery, as much as 45 minutes may have elapsed. They have then to get prepared to deal with the problem, so taking more time. Overall a better, quicker and safer service can be provided by Beds Vets.
• Constraints, both now and in the future, placed on us by Health and Safety legislation and Working Time Directives presently make it difficult to run an on call service and be sure to have enough staff available to work in the day. Soon it will not be possible as on call hours may well count as worked hours.
• Rested vets and staff work better in the day!

Map to Beds Vets