Hello all
I started my new job as a Animal Care Assistant today at a vets in Wiltshire.
The Practice Manager started to go through the Benefits I would recieve, I was thinking pension, holidays etc (boring stuff). Then she told me I get cost price on all products, Medicine, Frontline, Wormers, food etc. I was so chuffed, also I get cost price on Boosters, so normally at my normal vets I pay 39.00, now I'm working at a vets I get it for £9.00!!! and pay no consult fee!-also any Op's are half price! (hope they never need any)

It really does make you realise though how expensive vets are  and how much of a mark-up they put on things.

When I was on holiday in Devon we took a sick Rabbit to a vet their and the consult was £4.00, I pay £27.00 in Wiltshire!!

Also Rosie my BC was poorly so my vet prescribed Canine I/D dried food, it cost us £51.99!

Anway I hope I havent rubbed anyone's noses in it, but I am so pleased I get these benefits!!! :), mind you the money is not anything to be pleased at so I suppose this makes up for it, which is fine because I love the job to bits already!!!!

How much do you all pay for things???

xxxx

all jobs hopefully have benfits,
i work at a health club,i get all the nomal benfits ,plus fee use of the gym,which i dont use,pool,stream room,sunbeds,discount on beauity products,and so on,but if i had to join it would cost me £57 a month.,so all job have they good points,

Lucky you!!! vet bills are expensive but we have to pay them. It's not until afterwards me and the other half have a good moan. I have always found the consultation the worst bit as luckily we have only had minor injuries. We have learnt a little when we got tyler a month ago he had a few probs one including a cut on the end of his tail we paid something like £15 for consultation and £2.50 for bandage, so when the bandaged was chewed off we went in and asked to buy just the bandage material. Sounds like you get good perks in your new job good luck with it.

I pay £25 consultation but dont pay a consultation fee for any follow ups with the vets I am with now whereas the last vets was £25 everytime we went.
Mary

A good friend of mine was a Veterinary Nurse for several years, and as I recall enjoyed many of the benfits you mention.. I thinks its a job you do for the love of it, you won't get rich on the salary ;)

liberty :D

well done on your job!!!!!! sounds FAB! ;)

all jobs have their benefits dont they??? or theyed never keep any staff!!!!! :D   :D   :D
fore instance i get free developing,allday use on the internet & cost price & vat stock!!!!!!

Ha Ha, welcome to my world! As a vets receptionist i get all the same benefits as you, so i harldly pay anything. I can even get burns through them at cost price! Today i took meg to the vets for colitis and she had two injections, some synulox tablets and some steroid tablets, and the total came to £21. Last time when i took her to my old vets it was double that!! You can order just about anything vet related from NVS and get it cheaper!!
Wht does being an animal care assistant involve, is it all the mucky jobs, like cleaning kennels, feeding etc? It sounds like heaven!

Ok I'm jealous ;)

Sounds like a great job always fancied working in a vet, working with animals got to better than the humans I seem to meet in my job. (there not that bad really)

You got me thinking though, I'm really luck, my boss really looks after me and appreciate me too!  And this is the best bit, he lets me bring Oscar into work with me two days a week. :)  Continue to Enjoy!

Hello Lucy and Meg
Hope you are ok. Yes, part of my job does involve the mucky side of things i.e cleaning kennels etc. but the first part of the morning is helping out in the op's theatre, preparing prep room etc. Helping to hold the animals when drugs are given and then I get to watch the op being done!!! great :)

It's very hard work, but there is nothing nicer than going into work and being with animals all day, caring for them and making sure they are ok after an op.

I'm hoping to go onto do the Animal Nursing course through the BVNA, hopefully when I've been there for about 6 months, you can then go straight onto the Vet nurse course if you pass.

I'm 29 at the end of Jan though, do you think thats to old??, I know thats probably silly but the nurses at the vets are only 25!

Jo
xxxx

Hi Jo,

Congrats on the brilliant job :D 

Regarding too old to go to college, my mother in law has just started a computer course at the age of 83 :D and while I was in university (at 33years old ;) ) there was a lady half-way thru her degree - she was 84!!!!  and very sprightly too :D  sooooo, I think you'll just about be old enough :D :D :D

And I thought my job was good getting half price meals!

I think this puts veternairy nurse back on the cards for future!!! :D ;)

Good luck in your new job!

I'm suire a certain politician thought that they'd get benefits in his job, but look where it got him :d

I work in a hospital can't see any benefits there.   Low pay, charges for parking your car, expensive dinners, go to your GP like anyone else to be referred etc.   In some ways I'm glad that we don't get any benefits :d :d

Sounds like a great job but then I live in Devon where the vets are very good and very reasonable.  We went a couple of months ago and got AB eye cream for the both of them as they got conjunctivitus, then a large bottle of frontline but the consult fee and came to about £35 or thereabouts which seemed rather good.  Plus the nurses are always wonderful, its a twenty minute drive but I have been going there for 10 years now and wouldnt swop unless I really had to.

As to the benefits in my job, free conveyancing that I can do myself anyway.  Brilliant I dont think....

I do sometimes wonder how vets come up with the fees, in August I had to take my hamster to the vet because he had a lump sticking out of his bottom, the vet charged £12.99 consultation fee, we were in there for about 2 minutes.  The hamster only cost £6.95!!!

My only gripe with vet prices is the mark up on  things like vaccinations, wormers, flea treatment etc. These may be reasonable for owners of one small dog, but they certainly mount up for multiple dog households with large breeds. On the other hand I find my vets' charges are very reasonable for major problems requiring surgery and / or extensive investigations.

From the fees they charge, vets have to pay for their premises, their equipment, their insurance, the drugs, the salaries of their staff, 24-hour cover ...oh yes, and a salary for themselves ...

Vets charge what doctors would charge if there was no NHS.

Thats very true JG. When i take payments from people i often think that its extremely expensive, but then when you think about it they aren't making that much money out of it when you consider all the staff they have to pay, overheads e.t.c.

LOL had to laugh re the premises I know my vets very very well & the group was set up by a vet who is featured in Alf Wights James Herriot's books by name & a couple of colleagues One of who told me they had finally managed to buy the building in 1972 for the exhorbitant amount of £5,500(he was a lovely vet & person & really shocked) ! Don't know how much the property is worth now but one next door with less than half the floor space sold for £300,000 at Auction. They also bought some terrace houses behind the surgery(were they all lived in the early days)for £1,500. They still own them & the junior vets live there when they first arrive, they are one of the cheapest vets around & a lot less than the all singing & dancing state of the art vet(as seen on TV as part of Vets in Practice)who left one of my friends dog to die over night on his own post op & who miss diagnosed VW(same dog-he had never heard of VW in a Dobe !!!)At my vets there is a vet on call at the surgery 24/7 along with a vet nurse & if there are patients in over night they are monitored constantly

Their claim to fame if one of the senior vets ringing a huge bull's nose(looked awful but the best way to control a huge entire male bovine I'm told, he was so big the vet who at 5'10"is quite tall for a female vet was dwarfed by him He was one of the french breed bulls)on the TV, she was a trifle difficult to understand for some people as she is a Glaswegian !, but having been here for over 30 years she has got quite a bit of a Yorkshire twang now