Having drinks with friends the other night the inevitable subject of the cost of veterinary fees came up.

Opinions were mixed as to whether vets were too expensive – depending on people’s experiences. It seems that us Brits tend to think that veterinary medicine is expensive whereas people from overseas take it more in their stride. The ultimate reason for this is that we, as a nation, are not used to paying for our medical treatment. Unfortunately, there is no NHS for animals.

Medical treatment, be it human or animal, is costly. To run a veterinary practice there are huge overheads, from building costs to salaries and equipment purchase. On top of this are the costs of medicines themselves as well as ongoing training costs for staff.

To be a decent veterinary practice we, like many others, are inspected for the Practice Standards Scheme by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (rather like an Ofsted for vets) and this ensures that we are providing a high standard of veterinary care for all our patients.

However as there is no public funding for this care the costs have to be met by our clients. We always try to tailor any investigations we do in animals to suit the financial constraints of clients and that is one reason why we always recommend health insurance for pets to cover costs when things really do go wrong.