Frequently Asked Questions

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Our standard consultation fee is £49.50. This is a 15 minute appointment with one of our vets and will include a health check relevant to the presenting problem, an open and honest discussion about the options available to you, and our advice on how best to proceed.

Thereafter, costs can vary depending on the type of problem, but we will always endeavour to offer you the best value-for-money care for your pet.

Our surgical prices for the majority of common procedures are fixed and include pre-op blood tests, fluids, medications and pain relief. We also offer a no blame guarantee (subject to terms and conditions) which helps you to know whether your pets treatment will be affordable, and can budget accordingly.

We mean if you ask us for a price, and we give you one, that's what it will cost. We don't vary the cost according to the weight of your pet on the day, nor will we charge you extra for any post-op pain relief, antibiotics, initial post-op check ups, or anything else directly connected to the procedure.

We don't like nasty surprises, especially when it comes to money, so we know you don't either, and we want you to be able to budget for your pet's healthcare. By offering all our procedures at a fixed price, we know it's easier for you to make a decision about what you want us to do.

If we don't have a fixed price already on our system for your pet's needs, we will take time to create one and give you a firm quote. It may not always be possible to do this, but we will try our best where we can.

With our "no blame guarantee" you can also be confident that post-op complications will be covered under the same price too.

In the first 14 days after any surgical procedure, we offer a no blame guarantee. This means that if any complications arise, which we all know they can, we will help resolve them at no extra cost.

Sometimes pets pull out their stitches, bandages are pulled off, sometimes wounds get infected, and sometimes things just need extra attention. We can't predict which animals these complications will arise in, and nor can you, so we accept that it's not your fault or ours. So, if we perform any surgery, and it needs intervention in the first 14 days afterwards, we'll sort it, no questions asked and at no extra cost to you.

There are a few important things to be aware of though:

We won't pay for treatment at any other practice, either as an emergency out-of-hours, or because you choose to go elsewhere.  Our guarantee only covers work which we carry out at Salt House Veterinary Centre. 

This guarantee is not valid  if you do not follow our post-op guidelines (for example if you remove a protective dressing,  e-collar or shirt, or allow your dog to participate in any activity other than as advised after surgery).

As a family-run, independent practice our team do need to take time off overnight and at weekends, so we work with two trusted Northwest-based organisations who provide out-of-hours care to our clients and their pets.

Our registered clients have 24/7 access to a vet via the online service, VidiVet. You can access it via a smartphone app or a computer. VidiVet will offer advice and support within 5 minutes of contacting them.  They can tell you if your pet needs to see an emergency vet, or if there is something you can do to help your pet until you can get in to see one of the clinical team at Salt House Veterinary Centre during our normal opening hours.

We provide the VidiVet service for FREE to our clients, because we believe most out-of-hours calls can be dealt with at home, or can wait to be seen by us during normal working hours.  We therefore hope this will save our clients the time and expense of travelling to an out-of-hours hospital.

All you need to do is download the app and register using our dedicated registration page.  Please see the "Out Of Hours" tab for more details.

For those emergencies that cannot wait, we have an arrangement with MiNightVet at Chestergates Veterinary Hospital on the outskirts of Chester (near Costco at the end of the M56).  This is a dedicated emergency service which is staffed by specially trained emergency vets and nurses at all times, with access to the full facilities of a state-of-the-art referral hospital, including a fixed on-site MRI scanner.  We believe that if your pet needs to be seen as an emergency case, these are the best people to help you and your pet in an emergency, in the best facilities available.

We have an arrangement in place with DivideBuy* whereby you can apply for interest free credit to spread the cost of your vet fees over a maximum of 12 monthly instalments.  The amount of credit can be between £100 and £6,000, with the option to pay this off over 3, 6, 9 or 12 monthly instalments (depending on the sum borrowed).

This 0% APR interest free credit option is subject to eligibility and a successful application being approved by DivideBuy.  Salt House Veterinary Centre have no input to, or influence over, the approval decision.

Immediately following a successful application, DivideBuy will request an initial payment - this is set by DivideBuy, but will be at least the amount of one instalment. Once we have received notification this first payment has been successfully made, we can then carry out the planned veterinary treatment for your pet.  DivideBuy will settle your vet fees directly with us once the treatment has occurred.

Please note your credit agreement will be directly with DivideBuy and you will be responsible for settling the amount due to them via the agreed monthly instalments.

Please contact us if you require further information regarding the DivideBuy interest free credit / monthly instalments option and how to apply.

We can also allow you to pay up-front for procedures if you choose, and we do have an online payment facility.

We do understand that conversations about finances can be awkward at times, but please be assured we will treat any such discussions confidentially.  We will do what we can to explore the options that are available to enable you to provide the best care to your pet within your available budget.

*Zopa Ltd t/a DivideBuy credit agreements are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). Credit is available to permanent UK residents aged 18+, subject to status, any missed payments may affect your ability to obtain credit from DivideBuy and other lenders. Please spend responsibly.

Whilst we can offer home visits by prior arrangement, we are a small and busy practice so in the majority of circumstances it is not feasible for us to provide this option, particularly at short notice.

Wherever possible, we also prefer to see your pet at our practice premises where we have an extensive range of diagnostic equipment and treatments on hand depending on what your pet might require on the day.

If you'd like to request a home visit please try to give us as much notice as possible and we will let you know if we are able to book this in.

Yes we do. Several members of our staff are very experienced with exotic pets, having done additional training and worked in practices with a regular exotics case load. Our senior vet and practice owner also has exotic pets of her own.

We are by no means experts in exotic pets, but we're willing to continue learning and to work with you if we can. 

We are a small, family-owned, local practice. We do not have external shareholders, management teams or business consultants to pay from our profits. When you pay us, you are paying for the practice you see, the team that you meet and the drugs/equipment that we use on your pet. We are happy to discuss the exact economics with you if you ask - we have no hidden fees or costs.

In contrast, corporate practices are owned by very large, shareholder-owned, companies with hundreds, if not thousands, of non-clinical employees, all of whom need to be supported by the revenue generated in their veterinary practices. When you pay a corporate practice not only do you pay for the clinic you use,  just like you do with us, but you also pay for people at "Head Office" that you will never meet, and for the profit margins required by faceless corporate shareholders and investors.

Corporate practices are large business with strong buying power and can often buy in bulk at great discounts, but they typically use these discounts to make higher profit margins to cover their additional overheads, rather than pass on savings to their clients.

Corporate practice staff work often have to work under target conditions, which mean they need to reach a certain level of trading to achieve their objectives and, where applicable, bonuses.  This often means pressure from management to sell products or food, and to generate higher fees. We do not work that way. We believe pressuring staff to make sales is not in the best interests of our patients, or our staff.

Every employee at Salt House Veterinary Centre has worked in corporate practice and we have all chosen to move to independent practice, which gives us greater flexibility in terms of patient care, and a greater sense of community support.

Corporate practices also tend to have guidelines set by their group companies around things like what specific brands of medicines they should use and how procedures should be charged for.  As an independent practice we are free of any such restrictions, allowing us to do what we think is best for our clients and their pets.

Ultimately, we feel that being an independent practice helps us to help you without any of these distractions or outside pressures.

We offer bespoke health plans, tailored to your needs.

Our health plans all include a tailored preventative care plan, covering infectious diseases and parasites. We know that vaccination schedules are not rigid and should be chosen based on individual risk, and the same applies to parasite control, so we don't offer a one-size-fits-all approach.

We also understand that as pets age their needs change so we look at what your pet might actually need over the coming year and we plan accordingly.

Please email us or give us a call if you require further information regarding out Friends and Family Plans.

Yes, we currently support direct insurance claims at no extra cost, but we do need you to assist with certain information to enable us to do this.

We need to know before we admit your pet for any investigation or procedure if you are going to want to make an insurance claim.

We will ask you to provide us with a copy of your insurance policy, either by email or you can bring it in to show us.  We also ask that you let your insurance company know that you wish for us to make a direct claim and that you authorise us to do so on your behalf. Without this we will be unable to submit a claim.

Once we have all the details we will contact your insurance company to check your policy terms and conditions, including your excess, and any exclusions. Each policy is different and this means we can tell you in advance if there's likely to be any problems or anything not covered.