At Purton Veterinary Group we are proud to say our clinical standards
are amongst the best available and and you can rest assured that we put your pet first. A recent study published by a team at the University of Cambridge has shown there is a significant disparity between the clinical standards clients think their vets provide and what actually happens behind the scenes. 328 owners were surveyed and their expectations compared to what 56 vet students had experienced in their rotation through veterinary practices while training.
- 98.2% of owners expected vets to wear sterile gloves while operating, however only 37.5% of practices used sterile gloves routinely.
- 92.7% of owners thought their vets would wear a sterile surgical gown during surgery but only 14% actually did.
- 71% of owners expected theatres to be cleaned between surgeries but only 7% did so with most practices cleaning on a once daily basis.
- 61% of clients thought their pets needed to be sent home with painkillers but only 17% of vets routinely supplied painkillers.
Jill Nute, RCVS senior vice president and chairman of the practice standards group welcomed the study. She was encourage by the results relating to separation of different types of surgery. It is good practice to separate dirty procedures from clean sterile procedures, such as having a separate dental treatment area from the room you do operations in.
- 83% of owners expected a specialised theatre for surgical activities but approx 40% of practices have these facilities and only 19.6% of practices have a separate room for dentistry.
People differ in the service they want to receive and the amount of money they are prepared to pay for that service level. We are proud to be associated with those practices that provide an excellent level of care and have high standards.
At Purton vets we routinely wear sterile gloves, surgical gowns and caps for all sterile surgical procedures.
We operate in a dedicated surgical theatre for clean sterile surgery, a separate preparation area which is used for unsterile procedures as well as a separate dental room. Our theatre is always kept clean between procedures.
Most importantly we routinely send patients home with pain relief after most surgery and never assume that they have no pain. We include painkillers in our neutering operations at no extra cost. I think it's worrying that in this study only 17% of vets routinely supply painkillers.
We employ properly trained and qualified veterinary nurses to monitor patients under anaesthesia (rather than the common practice of using unqualified "nurses" who double as administrators).
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