What is The London Cat Clinic?
Well, we’ve been open for near 2 years now, would you believe it?! We’ve made huge steps from Dr Jeremy’s feline fanatical dream to the practice we are today. In this blog, we’d love to share the highlights of our wonderful cat clinic with you, and explain why we believe what we do is so important.
Built with cats in mind
It’s perfectly possible to be a Cat Friendly Clinic and accredited, as we are, by the International Society of Feline Medicine or ISFM, without being purpose built – and in fact we encourage other practices that don’t have the luxury of this option to do so in some small way to improve the quality of our feline friends trips to see us. However, by designing just with cats in mind from the beginning, we’ve surpassed the ISFM’s Gold Standard and we are often used as a showcase practice. Everything is built around the needs of our patients, from the waiting room, designed to give cats a sense of privacy and to provide a calming environment for both them and their carers. Our consult rooms with ‘cubbies’ built in to the walls for frightened felines to hide away in allowing them to slowly gain confidence, a natural light wall, surfaces designed for our patients to roam wherever they like and ‘own’ the place, no chance of getting stuck in computer cables or under a sink with us! We also have a specially designed operating theatre, where the ventilation system and even the walls themselves are designed to reduce infections, hospital and day wards, with large, quiet, and secure accommodations, with tinted glass and feline forts for more timid patients to hide away and feel safe.
We proudly won an award for our building, the 2017 National Veterinary Practice Design Awards, but that’s not why we did it - it’s so that your cat can feel as comfortable as possible while they’re here. And in case you’re wondering, that makes it easier for us to examine them in much greater detail, because we’re not spending all our time trying to work out which symptoms are due to their illness, and what they are hiding from us in response to the stress and anxiety of a visit to the vets. An in-depth examination like this leads to an earlier diagnosis and treatment in a lot of cases.
Run by cat people, for cats (and other cat people!)
Our staff all happily describe themselves as feline-fanatics! Fundamentally, we do this work for our patients. It is a vocation, not just a job. From the vets to the nurses to the reception and support staff, we’re all cat owners and we’re all cat lovers.
Beyond that, however, we’re all trained and experienced in working with cats. We strive to keep everything quiet, and calm, and relaxed – helped by not having barking dogs to contend with! If your cat is stressed by their visit, we wait for them to relax as they can roam around the consult rooms. All our staff adhere to the IFSM Feline Friendly Nursing Guidelines, which means that the cat comes first! And of course, it means we never, ever, scruff or manually restrain a cat and we will do whatever we need to do to help them.
Our vets all hold or are studying for additional qualifications in feline medicine - cats as we all know are NOT small dogs and have their very own specialist medical requirements! However, as all we treat are cats, we can focus our attention and our learning on the extraordinary and unique animals that we love.
Run to cat-time not human time
That doesn’t mean we spend all day sleeping on the sofa and only wake up at feeding time... It means that everything we do is done slowly, and deliberately, in a calm and relaxed manner. Our routine consultations are 20 minutes long - twice as long as most veterinary practices - allowing us to thoroughly examine a relaxed and calm cat, rather than having to fight them to get everything done in 10 minutes. For all new clients we allow 30 minutes to make sure we really get to know you and your friend.
Feline-specific additional services
“Just” being an excellent GP vets wasn’t enough for us either. We wanted to be able to offer more, do more, and give more. That’s why we offer a range of additional, highly specialised, services to our patients and their humans. We’re especially proud of…
- COHAT - Comprehensive Oral Health Assessment and Treatment. Cats are prone to a range of unpleasant dental diseases, which can be very hard to detect and treat effectively. The COHAT procedure allows us to diagnose these disorders even when they lie below the gumline. Click here to read more.
- Acupuncture - we increasingly use this complementary therapy to help our feline friends, especially those with chronic conditions such as arthritis or gut disorders. Click here to find out about how it can help.
Nursing Clinics – We are proud of our nurses and their additional training and skills. They are here to help, and can be the first port of call, especially with new kitten checks, dental health checks and nutritional assessment and weight clinics. See how much they can help you here!
- Endoscopy – We have smaller specifically designed endoscopes for examination of our patient’s ears, nasal cavity, throat, lungs, stomach and intestines. These scopes allow us a look into ‘inner space’ and in a minimally invasive way provide incredibly useful information and diagnoses.
At The London Cat Clinic, everything we do is for the well-being of your cat for their nine lives and counting. We look forward to seeing you. Any questions? Give us a ring!