For cat and owner alike trips to vets can be a bit traumatic. Provided the limitations are recognised and provided there is an existing, physical vet-client-patient relationship which is firmly established, remote veterinary consultations (vet telemedicine) can work admirably and help to facilitate and speed up treatments at a time when, in the UK, there is a surge in demand from Britain’s legion of new lockdown pet owners. Yes, there’s been a very large increase in pet owners because of the Covid surge in adoptions. This mainly applies to dogs but cats as well.
Many veterinary clinics are oversubscribed. As I recall, there is difficulty in hiring enough veterinarians partly because many of them were employees from EU member states and they’ve returned to their native country such as Poland leaving gaps in the UK. Remote consultations can help to deal with these issues.
The British Veterinary Association (BVA) has raised concerns about the provision of prescription medication via websites and remotely. They state that remote appointments cannot be seen as a one-stop shop. It has to be grounded in an established relationship between vet and client.
For example, it is possible to deal with certain conditions on this basis such as skin conditions, eye conditions, urinary conditions, digestion and nutrition issues. These are all commonplace cat and dog health issues. There is a new business in the UK providing remote consultations and it is called Vetster. It was started by Mark Bordo and is based in Toronto.
He said that technology was “coming in to try and solve and balance a lot of these problems”. The problems he’s referring to is that “in many countries, including the UK, pet adoption through the pandemic skyrocketed. You have bed shortages, overbooked clinics and burnt-out veterinary staff”.
His platform which has been signed up to by a hundred vets and which can connect owners with vets 24 hours a day via its app or website, allows users to upload video and photos, blood-work and x-rays, with a medical record then available for download.
Telehealth is already well established and booming in the human market, once again because of the pandemic which has dramatically altered the relationship between doctors and their clients. Vetster is an extension of this change in work practices.
The idea of remote vet appointments has become far more popular in recent years. A Swedish company, FirstVet was launched in the UK in 2019. They claim to have treated 500,000 animals across the world.
Another provider in this marketplace, Joii Pet Care, claims that there has been a 14% increase in demand for remote veterinary consultations in the first six months of 2022.
There are 3.2 million more pets and UK households since the beginning of the Covid pandemic according to the Pet Food Manufacturers’ Association.
P.S. On a separate but similar topic, the police in the UK have launched a DNA database for dogs to help prevent animal theft. For example, Dyfed-Powys police are encouraging dog owners to take samples with swab kits and send them in to be recorded via the police’s DNA Protected scheme.
Dog theft surged during the pandemic together with dog ownership. The marketplace became heated and dogs became valuable enough to be stolen and traded. Apparently, in 2020 there were an estimated 2,000 dog thefts in England and Wales. They don’t know the true number because dog theft is not recorded as a separate crime but as the theft of any other object.
The swabbing kits cost £74.99 p and the service is managed by Cellmark Forensic Services.
Total remote triage before you take your pet to your veterinarian
