Amongst many new benefits, the continued provision of comprehensive out-of-hours cover is something that we feel is an essential part of our service to the animals under our care.
To co-ordinate calls, they are routed through an emergency call ser
vice which is manned locally by folk that have a good knowledge of the county and ensure that inquiries are directed to the appropriate vet.
For companion animals this means two dedicated small animal vets on call every night and able to see your valued pets at one of our surgeries.
Though this is usually the surgery normally attended, for more serious problems we try and direct cases to our Alnwick and Morpeth centres where we also have nursing cover if required.
For the farm and equine clients we have three vets on call at all times (at least one of which has a specialist interest in horses) roughly covering the north, middle and southern areas of our new extended practice.
Thankfully the number of nights we all have to work has reduced a little which is just as well as, irrespective of how busy we are, we still have to turn up for work as normal the following morning.
What the merger has meant is that the geographic area that we cover has changed and for the farm vets night work can take them to clients and parts of the county with which they may not be particularly familiar.
Of course, this could cause a few problems, though didn't phase an "Old Stager" like Dick, who has spent most of his life in and around Northumberland and always reckons himself to be pretty good with a map.
Even so he recognised that there are a few places in the county that, for one reason or another, he had just missed out on and as one of the vets in the new 'south' area there was likely to be few surprises.
At the end of June Dick's stepdaughter announced her engagement and after a brief scout through websites and brochures, Dissington Hall, near Ponteland emerged as the 'preferred' site for the special occasion.
A delegation was soon dispatched reporting favourably and with extreme pressure on available dates a booking was made immediately, despite Dick bemoaning that he had not even seen the place.
In fact, strange as it seemed with an estimated half a million miles up and down the roads of Northumberland under his belt Dick had never even driven past it!
To rectify the situation he vowed to make a detour to take a peek one day soon allowing him to give his valued seal of approval.
