Terms and Conditions of Trade

Thank you for entrusting the care and attention of your pet to Malthouse Veterinary Group Ltd. This document sets out the terms of the contract established between ourselves and you (the registered animal owner or individual requesting veterinary services) which comes into being when you register your animal with our veterinary practice or when you ask us to provide veterinary services. Some aspects of the terms may not be relevant to you and we request that you ask for further explanation/clarification if requested.

Fees

All fees for services and prices for goods (including food, accessories and drugs) are subject to VAT at the applicable rate. Prices for goods are notified at the point of purchase. A full fee breakdown will appear on your invoice which is available on request.

Fees for services include our professional fees in respect of the veterinary services provided along with the cost of any drugs, materials or consumables used in the provision of the services.

Any fees for our services which are fixed are displayed in our waiting rooms and can be found on our website and Facebook page.

Payments

Accounts are due for settlement at the end of the consultation, the discharge of your pet or upon collection of drugs/diets. You may settle the account using:

Cash
Cheque
Credit/Debit Card – please note we do not accept AMEX.
Payment link
BACS

You will be advised exactly when payments are due depending upon the nature of the services that we provide to you, but you should expect to make payments at the end of each consultation and upon the discharge of your pet from our care. In the event that your pet is hospitalised we may require part payment in advance of any period of hospitalization and/or stage payments for longer periods of hospitalisation. If your pet is hospitalised, we will try to phone you daily to discuss the progress of your animal and the fees incurred.

Please note if items are missed off the bill when initially raising an invoice, these fees may be requested after the point of issue if we detect this. We endeavor to advise you of any additional charges asap after treatment date.

If you become unable to pay your account according to the standard terms, this must be discussed with the veterinary practice as soon as possible.

If you do not pay your invoice when it falls due, we shall take such action as we consider appropriate to recover our fees which may include engaging third-party debt collection agencies to recover the outstanding fees. In such cases, any costs levied by the debt collection agency will be added on to the outstanding balance owed by you. Please note the use of debt collection agencies could affect your future credit rating.

We are entitled to suspend the provision of any further goods and/or services until you have paid any outstanding sums in full. Where we consider it appropriate to do so we may require payment on account before goods and/or services are provided.

Estimates

We will happily provide an estimate for the probable costs of course of treatment. Please bear in mind any estimate given can generally only be approximate – often a pet’s disease or illness will not follow a conventional course. We will endeavor to contact you as soon as we have reason to believe the that the costs could be significantly higher than the estimate. Please note all estimates are valid for a period of 14 days .

Prescriptions

Written prescriptions are available from this practice.

The charge for this service is displayed in our reception area and can be found on the fee section of this website. Prescription charges are applied only when you request a written prescription from us but go elsewhere to have the prescription fulfilled.

Animals requiring repeat prescriptions will need to be re-assessed periodically by the veterinary surgeon dealing with the case. The re-examination interval will vary between clinical cases. Please be aware there is a charge for a re-examination.

Please give us 48 hours’ notice (72 hours if after 2.30pm) for any requests for a repeat or written prescription.

Please note that we cannot accept the return of any prescription drugs as such items cannot be resold. If you wish us to safely dispose of any unwanted medication we can do so.

Client Records

Client and clinical records, and other such similar documents (including, but not limited to, digital imaging results), are and shall remain the property of Malthouse Veterinary Group LTD. Copies of clinical records may be passed to you or another veterinary surgeon on request should you move surgeries.

We never discuss or sell confidential records to any third party other than if you move surgeries or are referred to another veterinary surgeon.

There are limited exceptions to this. If we sell our business in which case the personal information that we hold will be part of the transferred assets. If it is required by law, or to support our website or to enforce our terms of use. This includes exchanging information with other organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction and also law enforcement agencies.

Data Protection

When you register your animal with our practice or request that we provide veterinary services we will collect personal data about you and/or your agents. We will only collect data that we need to perform the services, take payment or contact you such as names, contact details and some financial details. These details will be passed to a referral centre if more specialised clinical services are required. Please note that we may pass your details to debt collection agencies or our legal advisers for the purpose of recovering unpaid fees if you do not pay invoices when they fall due.

We comply with the GDPR regulations and will take reasonable precautions to ensure that your data is kept securely, used appropriately and is not shared with third parties except as required for the purposes outlined above.

Complaints

We pride ourselves on offering a gold standard service, and take customer complaints seriously. Should we not meet your expectations on any aspect of our service, please let us know at the time where possible.

Alternatively, should you wish to raise a formal complaint, we ask that you contact us in writing within three months of the complaint event. The management team will then investigate your complaint in accordance with of our Complaints Procedure.

On the flipside, we are also keen to hear if you feel you have received an exceptional service from a staff member.