An important update to many of our existing customers regarding details of our new emergency vet details.
Use Vets Now for all out-of-hours emergency care
On Saturday 5th of February, our previous emergency vets service from Mercer and Hughes ceased. Vets Now in Witham is now the recommended (but as yet, not official) provider of emergency care for pets under our care.
Vets Now
Vets Now is an out-of-hours veterinary practice based in Witham. They were the nominated emergency vet for some of our customers already, now for those who chose FurryFlitchers default choice, it will now be the nominated vet* unless you opt for an alternative. All customers affected will be receiving an email with this notice and we'll be informing customers verbally who book in the near future.
You can find out more information about Vets Now by visiting their website. For reference the price as of 3rd of February for an appointment is:
£58 for consultation + a £191.50 out-of-hours charge
What happened, a timeline
- At the beginning of February, a post giving notice for the (5th of February) was added to Mercer and Hughes' Facebook page
- On the 10th of February, a screenshot from Facebook was circulated showing a notice by Mercer and Hughes posted on Facebook that they would no longer continue to offer an out-of-hours service.
- Today (14th of February) we updated our website forms to reflect the change with the intent of using Vets Now for out-of-hours care. We have work yet to do but wanted to communicate officially that we have noted the issue and are working to update our practices here at FurryFlitchers.
- By the end of the week, a request will be made to Vets Now to be FurryFlitchers nominated emergency vets
- TBD, once the request has been approved an email will be sent to affected customers with the confirmation default choice with an option to change
As a licensed home boarding business, we are required to have an agreement with a vet for the provision of emergency care. We previously had this with Mercer and Hughes and now need to establish a new agreement with Vets Now. In practice, this won't impact the use of emergency care but is our priority to make it official.
We want to apologise for the disconnect between ourselves and Mercer and Hughes which has led to the delay in this notice reaching people in good time. In future will we take a more proactive stance on checking the uptime of services from our vendor.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact us via the normal channels and we'll be happy to assist.
*subject to confirmation
