Vetswest, the veterinary support services company, has been acquired by MWI Veterinary Supply, a subsidiary of the US multinational, AmerisourceBergen.

MWI already owns Centaur and VetSpace, and the agreement will allow it to further expand the range of services it offers the animal health profession in the UK. 

Jim Cleary, Executive Vice President of AmerisourceBergen and President of MWI Veterinary Supply said: “This partnership reflects our commitment to the success of veterinary practices across the globe. We’re proud to welcome Vetswest to the MWI family as we continue to expand our services in our mission to be the best resource to the animal health profession.”

Vetswest offers group business support services for its 235 member veterinary practices including negotiating manufacturer terms and a proprietary IT system that supports pricing intelligence, inventory information and reporting on purchasing activity. The company also provides access to ancillary services for veterinary surgeons to help manage human resources, continuing professional development, insurance offerings, pension services and other areas which support the growth of member practices. 

Vetswest's retiring managing director David Buckley said: “The resources of MWI and AmerisourceBergen will allow us to bring new innovation to the market and additional benefits to Vetswest members. I’m excited about Vetswest’s future under the leadership of Chris Sobey and as part of the MWI and AmerisourceBergen family.” 

Chris Sobey, who will become the new managing director of Vetswest following his tenure as Vetswest’s business development director said: “Our goal has always been to improve efficiencies and services for our members through scale and with our new relationship with MWI and AmerisourceBergen, we will be well positioned to further this core mission of our organisation.’’ 

Solihull-based Willows Veterinary Centre has opened a new unit to treat cats with an overactive thyroid.

The practice is one of few in the UK to use radioactive iodine (RAI) therapy, which, it says, has an average, a 95% success rate in treating cats with hyperthyroidism.

Stephanie Lalor MRCVS (pictured right), an RCVS Specialist in Feline Medicine at Willows said: "The new therapy is non-invasive and is the gold standard of treatment for cats with hyperthyroidism. It is safe and highly effective and a single injection can be curative. Patients do need to be screened for their suitability and ideally they are treated with medical therapy prior to the RAI. 

"Due to the radioactive nature of the treatment, patients must stay with us for 15 days after the injection. Our patients stay in luxury cat condos during their hospitalisation and their day-to-day care is over-seen by our lead radioactive iodine nurse, Vicky Maund."

The new unit is part of a £1 million investment in Willows which includes a dedicated operating theatre for minimally invasive procedures, a range of specialist treatment rooms and more than 40 new kennels.

Toby Gemmill, clinical director at Willows, said: "We are already extremely well placed to offer a wide variety of specialist treatments and this extension has provided us with the space to expand our services further. The new radioactive iodine unit is very exciting and allows us to build on our gold level cat-friendly clinic status."

For more information, visit www.willows.uk.net. 

A study published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology has concluded that children get more satisfaction from their relationship with their pets than with their brothers or sisters.

This study was conducted in collaboration with the Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition as part of a larger study, led by Prof Claire Hughes at the University of Cambridge Centre for Family Research.

Researchers surveyed 12-year-old children from 77 families with one or more pets of any type and more than one child at home. Children reported strong relationships with their pets relative to their siblings, with lower levels of conflict and greater satisfaction in owners of dogs than other kinds of pets.

The authors say this research adds to increasing evidence that household pets may have a major influence on child development, and could have a positive impact on children’s social skills and emotional well-being.       

Pets are almost as common as siblings in western households, although there are relatively few studies on the importance of child-pet relationships.  

Matt Cassells, lead researcher, said: "Anyone who has loved a childhood pet knows that we turn to them for companionship and disclosure, just like relationships between people. We wanted to know how strong these relationships are with pets relative to other close family ties. Ultimately this may enable us to understand how animals contribute to healthy child development."

He added: "Even though pets may not fully understand or respond verbally, the level of disclosure to pets was no less than to siblings.

"The fact that pets cannot understand or talk back may even be a benefit as it means they are completely non-judgmental. While previous research has often found that boys report stronger relationships with their pets than girls do, we actually found the opposite. While boys and girls were equally satisfied with their pets, girls reported more disclosure, companionship, and conflict with their pet than did boys, perhaps indicating that girls may interact with their pets in more nuanced ways."

Waltham researcher Nancy Gee, a co-author of the study, said: "Evidence continues to grow showing that pets have positive benefits on human health and community cohesion. The social support that adolescents receive from pets may well support psychological well-being later in life but there is still more to learn about the long term impact of pets on children’s development."

VetPlus has launched a powdered version of Kaminox, its potassium supplement for cats and dogs. 

Kaminox contains potassium gluconate and B-vitamins to help dogs affected by hypokalaemia.  

Originally released as an oral liquid supplement, Vetplus says this new powdered formulation offers a more concentrated level of potassium for larger pets or those that require a higher dose.  

Kaminox sachets are sold in packs of 30, with a scoop provided for easy administration.

Meanwhile, the liquid supplement is available in 60ml and 120ml bottles.

www.vetplus.co.uk/products

Petplan Equine has announced the finalists for the fifth annual Petplan Equine Vet of the Year Award.

The winner of the award award, which is sponsored by Petplan Equine in association with Horse & Rider magazine, will be announced at the annual Animal Health Trust Equestrian Awards, being held at London's Lancaster Hotel on Thursday 1^st November, 2012.

The finalists are:

Jess Hill BVM&S MRCVS Woodlands Veterinary Clinic, Cheltenham, Glos, England
Jess, who qualified in 2003 at the University of Edinburgh Royal (Dick) School for Veterinary Studies, is described as simply "brilliant" for her outstanding calm, capable and kind approach to her work and the way in which she makes herself readily available to her clients.  One nomination typifies all those received in praise of Jess' work: "She is incredibly knowledgeable and dedicated and nothing is too much trouble. She is great with horses - always quiet, kind and gentle. She works quickly and confidently, doesn't suggest unnecessary expensive procedures and is always cheerful and a pleasure to be with."

Keith Chandler BVMS Cert EP MRCVS, Kessock Equine Vets, Inverness, Scotland
Keith Chandler, a senior partner at Kessock Equine Vets received several nominations which credited not only him personally for his dedication, knowledge, pragmatic and caring approach but also his practice for its outstanding customer service. Upon receiving news of his nomination, Keith was swift to praise his team and explained: "This nomination reflects the exceptional team I have around me - together we strive to offer continuity, consistency and a minimum level of care to all our clients irrespective of which vet is in attendance."

Lee Paul, BSC BVM&S Cert EP MRCVS, Bushy Equine, Gwaelod-y-Garth, Wales
Nominations for Lee Paul, a specialist in internal and stud medicine who qualified at Edinburgh University's Royal Dick Veterinary School in 2002, unanimously praised his willingness to 'never give up' and to go beyond the call of duty. He is said to be highly dedicated and is praised for his willingness to always be available such as on the occasion when a horse he had been treating for a swelling in her throat presented complications during a weekend when he was not on duty. Despite this Lee, who had been contacted by the duty vet for background information, attended the call himself within an hour complete with the stethoscope he'd collected from the surgery en route and with his family in his car!

This year's judges were David Stickles, Head of Fund Raising at the Animal Health Trust, Alison Bridge, Editor of Horse & Rider magazine, Ben Mayes, President of the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) and Gil Riley, 2009 Petplan Equine Vet of the Year.

Petplan says that the record number of high calibre nominations made it hard for the judges to choose three finalists. Isabella Von Mesterhazy, Head of Marketing for Petplan Equine said: "Anyone motivated to nominate their vet for this award must hold them in extremely high regard so once again we were very impressed by both the quality and quantity of nominations we received. It is heartwarming and inspiring to read the submissions that describe the outstanding contributions made by all the nominees in keeping owners happy and horses healthy. It has not been easy to select just three to go through to the final."

The winner will be posted on www.petplanequine.co.uk on Friday 2 of November.

MSD Animal Health has launched a dairy calf heath checklist app, designed to help the veterinary professionals and farmers draw up action plans to improve calf health together.

The app, which works on tablets and smartphones, allows vets to e-mail audit results directly to clients following an interactive calf health assessment at the farm.

MSD Animal Health’s youngstock marketing manager Robert Simpson said: “Our new app allows both parties to explore, record and score calf health performance across five core areas to identify the strengths and weaknesses of any rearing unit’s environment and processes. 

“Working through a series of 10 questions within each core area – designed to tease out where a rearing unit is in terms of accepted best management practice – allows vet and farmer to quickly pinpoint any areas needing attention.

"What’s more, repeating the checklist every six or 12 months is a great way to keep things on track, allowing both parties to monitor progress against agreed targets”.

For more information about the app, contact your MSD account manager.

Premier Vet Alliance, a provider of pet health care plans, has announced that having completed its acquisition of Simplyhealth’s animal health business, it is now migrating 2000 practices over to its pet health plan portal. 

The company says that practices transferring to its pet health plan portal will be able to take greater control of their pet health plans and benefit from a range of innovative services for the same cost. They include the VMD-approved Post2Pet home delivery service, a messaging system to advise clients on applying products, attending appointments or renewing prescriptions, reporting to give practice leaders the insights they need to drive plan performance, the ability for pet owners to sign up online rather than visit the practice, and 24/7 access to a marketing hub and the Premier Vet Alliance Learning Academy.

Premier Vet Alliance’s Business Development Director Andy Taylor said: "We are excited to be offering our high performing Premier Pet Care Plan to the many new practices joining us following our acquisition of Simplyhealth’s animal health business. 

"We are working to make the transition seamless and believe that our new customers will be delighted at the expanded range of functionality our portal offers them, together with the reduced administrative burden.  We will continue to invest in its development to ensure that all of our customers can be sure that their pet health plan offers the most powerful set of tools and services available to help them drive up the profitability of their practice, while offering gold standard care to their patients and peace of mind to their clients."

For more information, visit: https://premiervetalliance.com/uk/ 

Cats Protection is calling for an urgent shift in pet owners' thinking in order to control the UK's cat population, after being inundated with thousands of unwanted kittens again this summer.

The charity is urging owners to neuter their cats at four months of age - two months earlier than the traditional six months - because this is when cats reach sexual maturity.

The call follows a recent survey carried out by the charity which found that just 4% of people neutered their cat at or before the recommended four months.

Each year, Cats Protection takes in thousands of unwanted or abandoned kittens which are the result of unplanned breeding so the charity is keen to make cat owners aware of the need to neuter.

 Jane Clements, Cats Protection's Neutering Manager said: "Getting the neutering message across is proving to be a very tough hurdle for cat welfare because our research shows the vast majority of people are still not neutering their cats early enough to avoid unwanted litters of kittens.

"Without neutering, the UK's cat population quickly gets out of control and each summer we are overwhelmed with kittens in need of homes so it is vital people ensure their cats are neutered at the correct age to prevent unwanted litters."

While the lack of early neutering was a problem across Britain, the survey found the ITV Yorkshire and ITV Central areas are the least likely to neuter at the recommended age, both with just 1% of cats neutered at or before four months. 

Cats Protection is planning to open a new homing centre later this year in Gildersome, Leeds, Yorkshire, and it is hoped its presence there will raise awareness of the need for better cat welfare and early neutering. The centre will find homes for around 500 cats each year, increasing the charity's work in the region by up to 68 per cent. Information about the new centre can be found by visiting www.cats.org.uk/support-us/future-for-cats/gildersome-homing-centre.

The charity is also embarking on a large scale neutering campaign in North Birmingham, which it hopes will help to raise awareness of the issues in the area.

Cats Protection runs a national register of veterinary practices that carry out neutering at four months of age. To register your practice, please visit the website at www.cats.org.uk/early-neutering

The British Medical Ultrasound Society is inviting vets to come to its Annual Scientific Medical Ultrasound Conference in Harrogate on the 12th December, where it will be running a veterinary stream aimed at veterinary GPs with an interest in ultrasound.

Lecture topics will include interesting cases, the importance of systematic abdominal technique, the challenge of becoming ultrasound competent within a primary referral setting, basic anaesthetic nerve blocks, using ultrasound for appropriate medical management, how CASE can support competency based veterinary ultrasound training and more.

The session will end with a debate on whether it is time for a formal / stand alone Veterinary Ultrasound training programme and who should accredit such courses.

Speakers include Natasha Dickinson from Cave Veterinary Specialists, Niamh Casey from Village Vets, Miguel Martinez from Northwest Veterinary Specialists, Will Humphreys from the University of Liverpool and Nuala Summerfield from Virtual Veterinary Specialists.

The day costs £75 (sounds like a steal, if you ask me), and you can register here: https://www.bmus.org/meeting-booking/ultrasound-2019/

A survey commissioned by the RCVS has found that a significant number of pet owners think veterinary surgeons offer poor or very poor value for money, suggesting more work needs to be done to communicate the value of veterinary services.

The survey was conducted by Mo Gannon & Associates, which asked 2,000 UK adults about their satisfaction with the service they and their animals received from veterinary surgeons, levels of trust in the profession, and whether the service provided by vets represents value for money.

32% of the respondents felt that veterinary surgeons represented excellent (8%) or good (24%) value for money. 38% thought that veterinary fees are fair. However, 29% thought that veterinary surgeons and their services provided poor (21%) or very poor (8%) value for money. The results were very similar to the last time the survey was conducted, in 2015.

Nevertheless, veterinary surgeons continue to enjoy very high levels of trust amongst the public. 94% said they either completely trust (34%) or generally trust (60%) vets. This put veterinary surgeons in third place amongst the most trusted professions, below opticians and pharmacists but above GPs and and dentists. 

Satisfaction with the profession was also high. 80% said they were either very satisfied (39%) or satisfied (41%), putting vets in fourth place below opticians, pharmacists and dentists, but above general practitioners and accountants.

RCVS President Dr Niall Connell, pictured right (would you trust this man?) said: "These results clearly demonstrate that there is a great deal of good will towards the veterinary profession and the work they do in treating the nation’s animals and serving their communities. The basis of all good relationships is trust, and it is fantastic to see that our clients continue overwhelmingly to trust our knowledge and expertise and remain very happy with the service we provide them.

"The picture on value for money is clearly a bit more mixed, although clearly 70% of the respondents recognise that we at least charge fair fees in terms of our time and expertise. There is, of course, always more work that we can do in order to help the public understand veterinary costs and fees and promote the value of veterinary care, as demonstrated by last year’s joint Pets Need Vets social media campaign with BVA, in which we highlighted the benefits to pet owners of being registered with a vet."

The Royal Veterinary College (RVC) has published new research in Preventative Veterinary Medicine which concluded that surgical management of cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) ruptures in dogs causes better outcomes for reducing lameness compared to non-surgical management¹.

The study was based on VetCompass anonymised clinical records from more than two million dogs under first opinion veterinary care in the UK in 2019.

The study applied causal inference methods to the analysis of random samples of 815 dogs with CCL rupture aged between 1.5- and 12-years-old to replicate a randomised clinical trial and explore the impact of the different treatment methods.

Balancing the arms of the study for variables including age, breed and bodyweight, the researchers compared the outcomes for the dogs who received surgical management for CCL ruptures to those that were managed non-surgically.

The results showed that dogs managed surgically were 25.7% less likely to show short-term lameness at 3 months post-diagnosis and 31.7% less likely to show long-term lameness at 12 months post-diagnosis than dogs managed non-surgically.

Surgically managed dogs were 38.9% less likely to have a pain relief prescription at 3 months post-diagnosis, 34.1% less likely at 6 months and 32.7% less likely at 12 months than dogs managed non-surgically.

The RVC says these findings also similarly demonstrate lower longer term pain in surgically managed dogs.

Camilla Pegram, VetCompass PhD student at the RVC and lead author of the paper, said: “This study used an exciting new approach that allowed us to determine ‘cause’ rather than being limited to ‘association’.

"Surgical management for CCL rupture is often considered as providing better outcomes than non-surgical management, but this study now provides an evidence base to support this.

"Whilst surgical management might not always be feasible for some dogs, the findings allow vets to quantify the benefit in their discussions with owners.”

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2024.106165 

Reference

1. PEGRAM, C., DIAZ-ORDAZ, K., BRODBELT, D. C., CHANG, Y., FRYKFORS VON HEKKEL, A., WU, C., CHURCH, D. B. & O’NEILL D.G. 2024. Target Trial Emulation: Does surgical versus non-surgical management of cranial cruciate ligament rupture in dogs cause different outcomes? Preventive Veterinary Medicine https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2024.106165 

Following its acquisition of SentrX Animal Care, TVM has added Remend Corneal Gel and Remend Dry Eye Lubricant Drops to its Corneal Focus range.

Remend Corneal Gel is used to aid the healing process of superficial corneal ulcers in dogs, cats and horses while Remend Dry Eye Lubricant Drops is designed to give long-lasting moisture and lubrication for dry eyes in dogs.

https://www.tvm-uk.com 

VetSurgeon.org is conducting a survey of veterinary surgeons to find out what you think of the recent RCVS Council decision to redefine 'under care', thereby allowing vets to prescribe veterinary medicines without ever having seen or examined the animal in person. 

The survey is very quick: sub two minutes. It asks simply whether you agree or not, and what you think are the benefits and drawbacks of remote consulting without otherwise knowing or seeing the animal. 

All individual replies are strictly confidential and will not be shared with anyone. Your name is only asked for validation purposes.

To take part: https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/7235757/Remote-Consultation-Survey 

The results will be published within a week.