Practice Tour
Practice History
Lanes Vet Group formed in 2007 as a merger of two longstanding practices.
Mission Statement
‘Our aim is to provide high quality care, in a professional and caring environment.’
Reception
Here at our Garstang branch the reception area is bright and welcoming. Our receptionists are on duty from 8.30am and endeavour to help make your visit a positive experience. In this area we also have a range of information leaflets which help to support advice provided by the vet or nurse. We have a display board showing our monthly promotion and also a selection of pet accessories and our Royal Canin food stand.
Waiting Room
Our waiting area is spacious and helps to reduce the risk of dogs frightening our feline patients (and vice versa). This is also helped by running an appointment only clinic, reducing the number of patients needing to wait at the same time.
Consulting Rooms
We have two consulting rooms, one larger than the other, to accommodate larger pets (or families). Both are fully equipped to examine your pet when unwell, or to complete a routine health check at the time of annual vaccination. Vets also tend to have a nurse or nursing auxiliary present during the consultation, to assist you in holding your pet during the examination.
Nurses Room
The nurses also have their own consulting room. In here they will admit your pet for its operation, discharge him/her afterwards and give you your aftercare instructions. They also run many nurse clinics to help you with general preventative healthcare for your pet, e.g. adolescent checks, diabetes and weight clinics.
Prep Room
This area is, as you would guess, mainly used for preparing animals for surgery. This is where the vet and nurse induce the general anaesthetic, clip the hair of the surgical site, and clean the area before surgery. The room also contains a “tub-table”, used for bathing dogs, and also for ultrasonic scaling of teeth.
Operating Theatre
In this room all our surgical procedures are performed. Visitors often comment that it is “empty”. We leave it that way to maintain cleanliness and sterility. During an operation only the patient, operating personnel and anaesthetist are present, again to decrease contamination, along with the necessary anaesthetic and surgical equipment.
Diagnostic/Imaging Suite
Here we keep our x-ray machine, ultrasound scanner, and ecg and blood pressure equipment. Most people are familiar with the use of x-rays to look at broken bones, and scanners to look at developing babies. We also use our x-ray and scanning facilities to look for heart and lung problems. Monitoring an ecg and blood pressure is useful in high risk anaesthetic patients as well as helping to diagnose circulatory disease.
Laboratory
In our laboratory we can do many tests which previously we had to send to external labs. Most blood and urine tests are now performed “in house”. We can run haematology screens, to monitor response to infection or the presence of anaemia; we can also test the function of many internal organs, eg the liver or kidneys, to give us an idea of how a patient may respond to anaesthetic. Being able to do tests “in house” has two major advantages to us all. Firstly, the results are nearly always available on the same day, and often within the hour, and also the costs to the client are more affordable.
Dog Kennels
We have a walk in dog kennel, for giant dogs, along with several other different sized kennels. This room is kept comfortably warm for patients recovering from general anaesthetics. Dogs are kept completely separate from cats, as this reduces stress on us all!
Cat Kennels
Again, our cat kennels are of several different sizes, in a room heated to maintain body temperature during the post-anaesthetic period. All are secure and the room has a self closing door to reduce any risk of escapees!
Isolation Kennels
There are dog and cat isolation facilities, in case of infectious disease. If we, for example, have to hospitalise a dog with an infectious problem, it will be nursed in a separate area by a specially allocated nurse, to reduce the risk of infecting any other patient.
Training Status
Here at Green Lane we have worked hard and have achieved both RCVS Tier Two training status and the Practice Standard award. This means that we have had rigorous inspections to check we provide a high standard of veterinary care, staff training, cleanliness and have a good range of equipment. We hope that this will give our clients additional confidence and know that their animals are in the best hands.
We have also now been able to display the ‘Skills Pledge Logo’ on all our paperwork, this government logo proves that we as a group are dedicated to providing ongoing training to all our staff and we are very proud to have been granted permission to show this on all our paperwork.
