Thank you for entrusting the care of your animals with Green Lane Veterinary Clinic. We look forward to caring for all your pets needs for many years to come. If there is anything we can do better, or if you have any suggestions about how we can make you and your pets feel more welcome, please do not hesitate to speak to one of our professional team members.
Responsible animal ownership
Green Lane Veterinary Clinic believes in the principles of responsible animal ownership and the benefits of preventative healthcare. Therefore regular appropriate vaccinations and flea and worming controls are essential. We also recommend that microchipping is the best permanent means of identification for your pet (this now the law).
In order to assist budgeting for your pet’s routine healthcare needs, we administer the ‘Pet Care Plan’ (PCP). Please contact the clinic for more information regarding the plan, but remember the PCP is not an insurance policy.
Pet health insurance
Animals can become ill or get injured without warning. Here at Green Lane Veterinary Clinic we strongly recommend the principle of insuring your pet against unexpected problems and associated bills that can arise. Please ask any of our qualified members of staff about insuring your pet, but remember we cannot recommend any particular company or scheme. However, please be aware that, unless we specifically arrange otherwise in writing, it is your responsibility to settle your account with us and then reclaim the fees from your own insurance company.
Fees
Please ensure all accounts are settled at time of treatment as this helps to keep the level of fees as low as possible for all our clients.
All professional fees, pet shop items and medicine charges are subject to VAT at the prevailing rate. Fee levels are determined by the time and skill level required for a case as well as medicines, materials, laboratory tests, consumables and diets used. Fee levels will also have a contribution towards general overhead costs. Itemised fees are available for nearly every treatment, however bespoke treatments are priced on a case by case basis. Our team will be pleased to discuss likely costs at any time, so please do not hesitate to ask for advice. You are liable for any fees incurred in the diagnosis and treatment of your animal even if it is brought to the clinic on your behalf by an agent acting on your behalf, such as a relative or friend.
No medicines or pet shop items can be dispensed without payment being received at the time the items are collected. This does not include items dispensed as part of the Pet Care Plan, which are subject to the terms and conditions of the plan.
Methods of payment
Accounts are due for settlement at the end of the consultation or treatment, the discharge of your pet, or upon collection of medicines and other sundry items. The account can be settled by using cash, cheque (with prior agreement and presented along side a relevent bank card), or a credit/debit card. We may require, at our discretion, a deposit of 50% of the estimated cost of treatment to be paid at time of admission to the clinic for any procedures or hospitalisation.
Estimates of treatment costs
Our professional team can provide written estimates as to the probable costs of a procedure or course of treatment. However, please be reminded that this is an estimate and it is not always possible to predict the final cost. If the estimated costs are likely to increase significantly, we will try to contact you by telephone (using the number(s) you have provided), and inform you accordingly. If, however, we cannot contact you, we will treat your pet as is necessary for the prevention of pain and/or suffering.
Settlement terms
Accounts must be settled at the time of your pet’s treatment. However, if an account is not settled at this time, a statement/invoice will be sent to your home address at the end of the calendar month for payment. If the account is not settled within seven days of the date of the statement/ invoice, then a reminder will be sent. If this happens, an additional accounting fee in respect of administration costs will be charged to the account. However, these additional late payment charges may be deducted at the discretion of the Practice Owner if the account is settled promptly in full. After due notice to you, the client, overdue accounts will be referred to our debt collection agency and further charges will be levied in respect of costs incurred in collecting the debt (these include the production of reports, correspondence, court fees, attendance at court, phone calls, home visits etc.).
Any cheque returned by our bank as unpaid, any credit card payment not honoured, and any cash tendered that is found to be counterfeit will result in the original account being restored to the original sum, with further charges added in respect of bank charges and administration costs together with interest on the principal sum.
All missed appointments will be charged for unless reasonable notice of cancellation is given.It is at the Practice Owners sole discretion not to charge for a missed appointment.
Inability to pay
If, for any reason, you are unable to settle your account as specified, we ask you to discuss the matter as soon as possible with a member of staff. Instalment payments or part payments of any account may only be sanctioned with the express permission of the Practice Owner, after appropriate checks have been made and you will have to sign an ackowledgement of debt. However, granting of permission for instalment payments rather than full payment at the time of treatment is at the sole discretion of the Practice Owner.
Ownership of records
Case records including radiographs, clinical notes, laboratory reports and similar documents are the property of, and will be retained by, Green Lane Veterinary Clinic. Part of the fees charged will be for the interpretation of such radiographs or laboratory reports. A summary of the history will be passed on to another veterinary surgeon taking over the case. Should you wish to obtain a copy of the case records or radiographs, we will provide these on payment of an appropriate fee.
Out-of-hours policy
Green Lane Veterinary Clinic provides out-of-hours emergency care, but from time to time we engage the services of other practices to provide this service. Contact details relating to this service are recorded on the clinics telephone answering machine, as the information may change from time to time. This may mean sharing the out of hours’ duties with other vets in the local area, or utilising a third party provider to provide our statutory out-of-hours provision.
Prescription policy
Prescriptions are available from this practice. Therefore, you may obtain Prescription Only Medicines, category Veterinary medicine, (POM-Vs) from your veterinary surgeon or ask for a prescription and obtain these medicines from another veterinary surgeon, clinic or pharmacy. The veterinary surgeon may prescribe POM-Vs only for animals under their care. A prescription may not be appropriate if your animal is an in-patient or immediate treatment is nescessary. You will be informed, on request, of the price of any medicine that may be prescribed for your animal. The general policy of the clinic is to re-assess every three months any animal that requires repeat prescriptions, but this frequency may increase or decrease depending on individual circumstances and the professional opinion of the veterinary surgeon. The standard charge for a re-examination for such purposes is the prevailing price of a consultation fee. There is a charge for providing prescriptions, so please ask a member of the team for the current prescription fees. Please give the clinic at least twenty four hours notice to administer a repeat prescription.
Privacy Policy
Green Lane Veterinary Clinic complies with the General Data Protection Regulations which will come into force during May 2018, replacing the existing Data Protection Act.The new regulations have been introduced to ensure that tighter measures are in place to secure personal data, and prevent it from being shared with a third party. For the purposes of administering our services to our client’s animals and to assist in the running of the business, we need to obtain such data information from you. Therefore upon registration with the clinic we will collect a range of essential personal data about you the client, and your animal(s). This includes, but may not be limited to; the clients name, address, telephone numbers (both home and mobile numbers) and email address(s). We aim to be completely transparent with regards to all personal data processed and stored by this site. The clinic also understands how important protecting your privacy is and adhering to these new regulations.
All newly registered clients are provided with a copy of our terms and conditions. This requirement is set out by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS). Any further communications will depend largely on your selected preferences of contact i.e. by text message, email, telephone etc. Most clients opt to receive reminders for booster vaccinations and other health-related issues. We may also send you general information to keep you informed, such as a change in opening hours, as well as carefully selected promotions which we consider to be relevant and useful to you and your pet(s). The frequency of any communications will also depend on your own preferences. So please let us know how many communications you wish to receive from us and we will regulate accordingly.
The clinic may contact you either by letter, phone, text or electronic means in order to advise you of outstanding accounts, reminders of your pet’s preventative healthcare treatments, and any marketing iniatives that might be of benefit to you or your pet. Therefore, please inform us if you wish to modify how we may contact you, but be aware that choosing to have no contact from us at all will remove the ability of the clinic to send you vaccination reminders. Reminders are provided as a complimentary service to our clients. Therefore, Green Lane Veterinary Clinic accepts no liability for any loss, damages or costs which may result from the failure of a client to receive any reminder. No addition or variation of these conditions will bind the clinic unless it is specifically agreed in writing and signed by the Practice Owner. No agent or person employed by, or under contract with Green Lane Veterinary Clinic, has the authority to alter or vary these conditions in any way.
The clinic also has an online privacy policy, where by this site uses performance cookies to analyse site usage data. The data collected from users is aggregated and anonymous. However, by using our website, you agree that we can place the following types of cookies on your device. The data collected may include: browser, operating system, IP address, time spent on the site and pages visited. By collecting this data it allows us to analyse our website and target areas of improvement to benefit you. Your data is collected for a specific, lawful purpose and will not be passed on to, or shared with, any third parties. Appropriate measures, such as firewalls, are in place to prevent any unauthorised processing of your data. We may feature links to outside websites, so please be aware that once you leave our site, we no longer have any control over the content, so we do not claim responsibility for any content seen on external sites. On our website there are a variety of pixels which enable cookies to be dropped onto your devices. These cookies may be used to target users on third party websites within Google. For more infromation regarding this, please click on the Cookies button below. In addition please read the Terms of use information also at the bottom of the page.
Enquiries and subscription
Please direct any enquiries to enquiries@greenlanevetclinic.co.uk or telephone 01622 890245. Alternatively, please write to us at:
Green Lane Veterinary Clinic, Shenley Farm, Headcorn, Ashford, Kent TN27 9HX
If you wish to amend or cease any email correspondence from us, we offer a one-click unsubscribe option. Alternatively, please speak to one of our professional members of staff about preferences and your options.
Complaints and standards
Green Lane Veterinary Clinic is committed to providing an exceptional standard of service and care to all our patients and clients. However, we realise that things can sometimes go wrong and there may be occasions when you feel your expections were not met by the clinic. When this happens we want to hear about it so that we can try to put things right.
We take complaints about our work, staff and levels of service very seriously, but we hope that before you make a formal complaint, you will give us a chance to resolve the issue. Most problems can be sorted out easily and quickly, often at the time they arise and with the person concerned. Initially please address your complaint to the Practice Manager or Practice Owner, but if you are unsure of their name(s), our team will be able to provide you with this level of detail. Genuine effort will be made verbally to resolve the matter at this stage at clinic level. To enable us to resolve any complaints efficiently please supply the following information:
- What is the nature of your complaint?
- When did the problem occur?
- Who was involved?
- What would you like the outcome to be?
A written complaint will be acknowledged within five working days, telling you who is dealing with your complaint and when you can expect to receive a reply. In most cases, we hope to give you a full reply within 15 working days, but if it is going to take longer, we will get in touch with you to let you know what is happening. We will then be in a position to offer you an explanation, and/or the results of our investigation. When investigating a complaint we will:
- Find out what happened and what went wrong
- Make sure you receive an apology (where appropriate)
- Identify what we can do to make sure the problem does not happen again
We hope that if you have a problem, you will use the clinics complaints procedure to resolve any issues. This will give us the best chance to put right whatever has gone wrong, and it is an opportunity for us to improve our practice. This does not affect your right to approach our governing body, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS), who can be contacted at www.rcvs.org.uk/advice-and-guidance, if you are dissatisfied with the result of our investigation.