Thank you for entrusting the care of your pet(s) to Medicor Veterinary Practice. This document contains our Terms and Conditions. Some aspects of the terms may not be relevant to you. Please ask a member of staff for further explanation or clarification if required.

We operate on an appointment basis only, Monday – Friday 9am – 6pm. 

Failure to cancel an appointment within 24 hours will incur the full consultation fee of £50

Medicor Veterinary Practice reserves the right to decline any new clients or to supply veterinary services at our discretion. 

The team at Medicor Veterinary Practice is committed to providing a high level of veterinary care to our patients in a compassionate and caring manner. We aim to work collaboratively with pet owners and to involve them in decisions surrounding their animal’s care as much as possible. Quotations, verbal or written, for any treatments or procedures advised are always available.  The team will care for your pet to the best of their ability and within their level of experience. There may be times when, in the interest of your pet, advice may be sought from specialist colleagues. This may be by phone (when the vet in charge of your pet’s case will discuss it with a specialist), or it may be that it is considered that your pet’s care would best be provided by a specialist. If that is the case, this will be discussed with you, the options and likely costs explained and provided you agree to the referral, the team will help to make the necessary arrangements to facilitate this. 

Registration & Contact Details

Veterinary practices must maintain accurate records of our clients and patients. To do this, we will periodically ask you to confirm registration and contact details. 

If your details change, please inform us so we can ensure our database is up to date. 

Data Protection

Medicor Veterinary Practice takes your privacy very seriously and we take great care to comply with our obligations under the Data Protection Act 2018 in order to protect your personal information including any financial details that you may provide. 

As per the Date Protection Act 2018, Medicor Veterinary Practice is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, 

Medicor Veterinary Practice will only use your personal information to liaise with you regarding the healthcare of your pets. 

Full details of how Medicor Veterinary Practice collects, stores and uses your data are provided in the practice Privacy Policy. 

Your personal data, patient clinical record, including radiographs, ultrasound scans and laboratory reports are kept in our database. These will be sent to another veterinary practice/surgeon on request from them and only with your prior authorisation. 

All new clients transferring to us or coming for a second opinion are requested to provide medical records from the previous treating veterinary practice. 

Medicor Veterinary Practice may need to disclose or share your personal information with regulatory authorities for the purpose of fraud prevention and/or to comply with any legal or regulatory requirement. If you have any questions about the way Medicor Veterinary Practice uses your personal information, please write to the Practice Manager, Medicor Veterinary Practice, Kennaa Equestrian Centre, Kennaa Road, St Johns IM4 3LW or alternatively email info@medicorvet.com for the attention of the Practice Manager. 

There are 3 reasons why Medicor Veterinary Practice, may potentially use our personal data to contact you. 

General information about the practice’s services

This type of correspondence is intended to inform pet owners about any changes to the practice’s existing service provision such as changes to the practice’s opening hours during holiday periods. 

Reminders about ongoing existing treatments and appointments

This type of correspondence is intended to remind pet owners about products or services that have already been ‘prescribed’ or agreed for their pets such as appointment reminders.

Promotion of new products and services

This type of correspondence is intended to promote specific products or services that a pet owner is currently not using on an ongoing basis such as new products or services. 

You have the option to unsubscribe to any of the three reasons above by emailing info@medicorvet.com.

Legislation relating to veterinary care

Medicor Veterinary Practice will endeavour to provide veterinary services in accordance with reasonable standards as specified in the RCVS Code of Professional Conduct for Veterinary Surgeons and Veterinary Nurses. 

Veterinary surgeons at Medicor Veterinary Practice can only give advice, diagnose and prescribe medications and/or therapies for patients that are ‘under their care’. 

Being ‘under the care’ of a veterinary practice means that the veterinary surgeon must know what is going on with the patient to make an informed decision. 

A patient cannot be considered to be under the veterinary surgeon’s care if there has been no physical examination, which means that a veterinary surgeon cannot prescribe a prescription only medicine to a patient if they have only conducted a consultation over the telephone or via the internet. 

However, if a patient has been prescribed a prescription-only-medicine for a long-term medical condition, the client can acquire more medicine without the patient having to be examined every single time. Such animals will require regular repeat examinations, to ensure that the animal is suffering no ill effects from the medications that have been prescribed and to monitor improvement or deterioration in any clinical condition. In addition, they allow the veterinary surgeon to check for the development of any new condition that might affect the continued use of medications previously advised. 

Every repeat prescription request needs to be authorised by a veterinary surgeon before it can be dispensed. Therefore, we require 72 hours’ notice for all repeat prescriptions. When making the repeat prescription request, be ready to give any details of the medication(s) needed along with the current dose you pet is receiving. 

Legally, the maximum period a veterinary surgeon can prescribe a prescription-only-medicine without having re-examined the patient is 6 months, this usually applied to those animals that are stable on their medication; in the early stages of the treatment of a disease, or in the case of a particularly severe conditions it may be necessary to re-examine the animal at shorter time intervals. The minimum period between examinations is not legally defined. This is determined by the prescribing veterinary surgeon based on their professional judgment of the animals’ clinical condition. The veterinary surgeons will always be happy to explain their decision regarding the necessity for repeat examinations. 

Due to legislation surround veterinary medicines, we are not allowed to prescribe or dispense, on any one occasion, more medication than would be needed, either for the condition to be expected to have resolved, or before the time of the animal’s next routine check-up, and in the case of certain drugs, from what are termed the ‘controlled’ legal categories, the total amount we are able to prescribe may be small in consideration of the safety of customers having such drugs in large quantities in their homes. 

Due to legislation, we are not allowed to prescribe or dispense products intended for use in humans if such a product exists in a veterinary formulation; therefore, any prescriptions provided will be for named veterinary preparations only. Should it be necessary to advise the use of non-licensed products we will explain the reasons for this choice and may request that a disclaimer is signed by the owner. 

Supply of medicines for therapeutic purposes

Medicor Veterinary Practice will offer to supply virtually all the veterinary medicines that have been prescribed for your pet. 

Medicor Veterinary Practice will also provide written prescriptions if you wish to obtain prescription-only-medicine from another veterinary surgeon, or pharmacy. Please bear in mind that delay in the start of treatment may not be in the best interest of the welfare of your pet. 

Written prescriptions are valid for use in the UK only.

Medicor Veterinary Practice will charge to provide a written prescription. 

Medicor Veterinary Practice can only provide a written prescription for animals under our care. Medicor Veterinary Practice will charge to examine all ongoing medical conditions should the client wish to acquire a written prescription or not. 

Medicor Veterinary Practice can also supply prescription-only-medicines if presented with a prescription from another veterinary surgeon. 

Supply of medicines for preventative healthcare purposes

Medicor Veterinary Practice uses prescription-only-medicines to prevent and resolves internal (worms) and external (fleas, ticks, lice, mites) parasites. Prescription-only-medicines treat a greater range of parasites more quickly and safely than non-prescription products. 

These preventative healthcare medicines can be prescribed to healthy animals if they have had consultation with a veterinary surgeon within the last 6 months. 

Return of unused medicine

Medicor Veterinary Practice will accept unused medications for disposal free of charge. 

Legally Medicor Veterinary Practice cannot offer a refund on any medicines which have left the premises as these are no longer deemed fit for resale. This is because Medicor Veterinary Practice cannot guarantee the conditions under which they were stored. 

Drugs purchased at another supplier will be accepted for disposal. 

Out of hours service

Medicor Veterinary Practice is open Monday to Friday from 9.00am to 6.00pm.

Outside of these hours, an out of hours service is provided to care for animals requiring urgent or emergency care, or to provide hospitalisation support. 

Out of hours surcharges are applicable

All out of hour’s consultations are to be held at the practice, we do not offer out of hours house visits. 

If your pet requires emergency treatment call our usual number 01624 663399 or 07624 318444, please leave a voicemail message with your details, your pet details, and a contact telephone number. The on-duty veterinary surgeon will call you back. If no voicemail is left, you will not receive a phone call reply. 

There is not a member of staff on site 24/7. 

Consent

In accordance with the RCVS Code of Professional Conduct of Veterinary Surgeons, Medicor Veterinary Practice will ask for signed consent for:

• All procedures involving admission to the clinic
• The use of medications in species for which they are not licensed. 
• The use of medications in condition for which they are not licensed.
• Permission to euthanise your pet. 

Charges

All fees, food, reception sales and drugs are subject to VAT. 

Fees are calculated according to the time, risk and skill required to perform a veterinary procedure. 

A price list showing the cost of our most common services can be found on our website.

All prices quoted, whether on our price list or in an estimate are inclusive of the current rate of VAT. 

Promotions are discounted at the discretion of Medicor Veteinary Practice and subject to limited availability or whilst stocks of the promotional items last. 

Estimates of charges

Most medical presentations can be resolved using a range of options. Upon your request, we will provide an estimate of the approximate cost of each option. 

Please note that medical care involves significant uncertainty and therefore unforeseen costs may occur. However, we will endeavour to inform you of any additional costs and explain why these have arisen as soon as practically possible. 

All estimates are valid for 14 days.

Expectations about payment

Medicor Veterinary Practice respectfully requests that the costs for all services and treatments are made in full, at the time that those services or treatments are provided. Payment would be preferred in cash or by debit/credit card. 

It would be greatly appreciated if any concerns about payment were raised before treatment has begun and discussed with the veterinary surgeon and management team. 

We do not offer payment plans for treatment since payment is expected at the time treatment is provided. Instalments or part-payments can only be sanctioned by management. Please do not expect any other members of the team to be able to make such decisions without referring to the management team. 

Pet health insurance

Medicor Veterinary Practice strongly supports insuring your pet against the unexpected costs due to illness or accident. Please ask us for details about the different types of insurance policy. 

Unless otherwise specified, you are expected to settle your account and then reclaim fees from your insurance company. 

Medicor Veterinary Practice will complete our portion of the insurance claim in a timely manner assuming we have all the relevant information to do so. 

Medicor Veterinary Practice will facilitate payment directly from some, but not all insurance companies, subject to the following terms.

• This option is not guaranteed and remains subject to approval by the management team.
• Medicor Veterinary Practice reserve the right to refuse payment directly from an insurance provider we perceive as consistently slow to pay or represents a high risk of non-payment. 
• Should Medicor Veterinary Practice agree to accept payment directly from an insurance provider, clients are expected to provide us with all the relevant documents to enable us to do this within 7 days of incurring the charges. Should these documents not be provided within 7 days after request, Medicor Veterinary Practice reserves the right to withdraw the offer of payment directly from the insurance provider and the client will be invoiced for the outstanding amount. 

• The client is expected to pay the balance of their excess when the insurance claim is submitted to the insurance provider. 

Unsettled accounts

Any account not settled within 7 days will be sent a reminder. 

Should the account remain outstanding beyond 30 days, Medicor Veterinary Practice reserves the right to refer any unsettled accounts to the small claim court, unless otherwise agreed. 

Should the account remain outstanding beyond 30 days, Medicor Veterinary Practice reserves the right to de-register the client and their pets. 

Any further costs incurred in collecting the debt will be added to the balance. 

Any cheque returned by our bank as unpaid, any credit card payment not honoured and any cash tendered and found to be counterfeit will result in the original account being restored to the original sum with further charges added in respect of bank charges and administrative costs.

Inability to pay 

If you are unable to settle your account, we ask that you discuss the matter as soon as possible with a member of the management team. 

We do not offer payment plans as payment for treatment is expected at the time. Instalments or part payments of any account may only be sanctioned with the permission of a manager. 

Complaints about the standards of care and service provided

If, at any stage, you should have queries about your pet’s care, in the first instance please discuss these with the veterinary surgeon in charge of the case. If you have any concerns and would like a 2^nd opinion from another veterinary surgeon at Medicor Veterinary Practice you are welcome to request to speak with one of them, or to arrange an appointment. If you would like a 2^nd opinion elsewhere (or to request that your pet is referred), again, please either discuss this with the vet in charge of your pet’s case, or with Practice Management who will be happy to assist you. 

If you have any queries, please ask a member of the team to supply you with our complaints procedure. 

Complaints

Please note that the last thing we wish to do at Medicor Veterinary Practice is to cause you or your pets any undue distress. If this happens, we would like to reassure you that any upset or distress caused is not intentional. 

However, if you feel that the standards of care, service and value for money you received from Medicor Veterinary Practice weren’t satisfactory, please contact the Practice Manager on info@medicorvet.com or use our Complaint Form.

Whilst almost all client frustrations and concerns can be resolved informally, should you feel that your issue has not been resolved to your satisfaction by the management team at Medicor Veterinary Practice you may wish to raise your concern with the RCVS. Please be aware of the following when doing so.

• Please note the RCVS only gets involved in complaints relating to the professional conduct of a veterinary surgeon (e.g. fraud, dishonesty) as opposed to accusations of negligence – unless the instances of negligence are sustained or represent a standard that would make the veterinary professional unfit to practice. This means the RCVS does not get involved in complaints about charges.
• The RCVS offer a client mediation service: https://www.vetmediation.co.uk 

Standards of conduct expected of our clients

Just as clients are entitled to expect appropriate standards of care, service and value for money from us, the management team and staff are entitled to expect appropriate standards of conduct and behaviour whilst serving our patients and clients. 

Medicor Veterinary Practices’ definition of ‘appropriate’ standards of conduct and behaviour is as follows; clients are not entitled to speak to us or treat us in a manner that would be considered inappropriate should we do the same to them. This includes:

• Swearing,
• Aggressive, abusive, or intimidating behaviour towards members of staff, 
• Blackmail
• Defamation on social media without drawing our attention to a concern.

Should such instances occur, Medicor Veterinary Practice reserves the right to de-register the client and their pets. 

For security reasons, Medicor Veterinary Practice is monitored by CCTV. 

We look forward to a long and healthy association with you and your pets.