We have four fully equipped consulting rooms in our hospital, and have three consulting sessions daily, when these rooms are used to examine patients, talk to clients and administer minor treatments.

For surgical procedures we have two main areas which are used for operating. Downstairs is the 'general' area, used for procedures that are likely to be less that totally sterile, such as wound cleaning and stitching and dental surgery. This area has full anaesthetic facilities, as well as a dental trolley with high-speed air-driven tools, meaning less stressful treatment for our patients. Upstairs is our surgical suite, comprising a large preparation area, a ward for "out-patients" with recovery cages and to dedicated surgical theatres, used for the 'clean' operations, such as neutering of female animals and orthopaedic surgery. In addition there is an imaging area with X-ray facilities which can be used for minor procedures and some imaging.

We use a variety of injectable or inhaled anaesthetics, according to the needs of the particular patient. We routinely use a drug called isoflurane, administered in oxygen via modern anaesthetic equipment, following induction of anaesthesia by injection of a drug called "propofol", a very short-acting anaesthetic. This is widely regarded as being one of the safest techniques available. As well as an increase in safety, this technique tends to leave the patient with less of a "hangover" than was usual with older anaesthetic techniques.

Once anaesthetised the patients are monitored continuously by nursing staff, and are attached to sophisticated anaesthesia monitoring equipment which includes a continuous ECG to check the heart, a "pulse oximeter" to check the oxygen in the blood, and a "capnograph" which checks the amount of anaesthetic gas breathed in and out and the levels of carbon dioxide breathed out.

There are three hospitalisation areas within the building, with separate dog and cat wards for in-patients and a recovery ward next to the theatre suite. All wards are centrally heated, and patients are continually supervised throughout the day. At night, our overnight staff supervise in-patients and administer any needed medication. These nurses will also undertake telephone duties through the night, and will contact the duty vet if any of the in-patients need attention.. We have a fully equipped practice laboratory and can provide blood tests within minutes in many cases. This is particularly useful at night or at weekends when the backup of an external laboratory is just not available. We use a Prestige wet chemistry analyser and a Lasercyte blood analyser, both state of the art laboratory machines.

In addition to this high-tech equipment we also, of course, have all the normal laboratory equipment - centrifuges, a microscope, slides and stains, and all the test kits and assorted glassware that you would expect in a modern practice.
For radiography, our hospital has a dedicated medical imaging room housing one of our x-ray machines - the other is in the operating suite - and a computerised digital x-ray processor. We routinely will undertake most types of x-ray examination.

We also have an ultrasound scanner with colour doppler within our imaging room, along with a selection of video endoscopes, all of which greatly increase our ability to visualise internal structures in the most non-invasive ways possible.

Intra-ocular surgery. To complement Mr. Clark's knowledge of eye disease the practice has obtained an operating microscope and a "phaeco-emulsification" unit. The microscope is proving very useful when operating on any small, delicate structure such as the eye, and the phaeco unit is used primarily for lens removal in surgery to remove cateracts.

Orthopaedic surgery. The large numbers of orthopaedic cases coming to the Hospital means that we need to stock a complete range of orthopaedic equipment to deal with disorders of the bones, joints and spine. This includes a variety of air-driven power instruments and a large range of implants, including equipment for total elbow replacement in the dog.