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What can I do round Burton on Trent while I wait?
If you’ve come from afar, there are interesting things to do around Burton on Trent, there are a good number of things to do to keep you occupied while you wait.
Lichfield is lovely little market town about 5 miles to the south with a gorgeous cathedral, and is well worth a look.
The National Memorial Arboretum is just a couple of miles down the A38.
http://www.thenma.org.uk/
Burton on Trent is famous for brewing and there's an interesting brewing museum to visit. Burton town centre is really nice with shops, boutiques and plenty of places to eat and drink.
The Trent and Mersey Canal is directly adjacent to our site and makes for a nice walk. Barton Marina is also walking distance away, with a parade of boutiques, eateries, art galleries and a cafe-cinema.
Can I have a surgical procedure done by West Midlands Referrals surgeons at my own local vet practice?
Very possibly! We offer a mobile surgical service where we go out to practices with all of the kit and equipment needed for surgical procedures. We travel as far afield as Doncaster, Peterborough, Manchester, Worcester and the Welsh Borders. This service is suited to elective procedures like cruciate ligament surgeries, patella surgeries and some soft tissue cases. The mobile service isn’t suited to urgent cases like spinal surgery because there is usually a modest waiting time before we can come out, and we prefer to have “hands-on” for the aftercare of suchcases rather than doing the surgery and then losing the direct contact with the case as we head home. We can only do some cases, like hip replacements, at Burton on Trent.
When cases are seen at your own veterinary practice, the aftercare is almost always carried out there too, including check-ups and repeat x-rays.
Where cost is an issue, it is usually cheaper for surgery to be done at Burton on Trent because travelling around is an inherently less efficient way of working for us.
We offer fixed prices for most of the surgeries that we do at Burton on Trent. These fixed prices include all follow up X-rays and consultations. See elsewhere in the FAQs and under the section Small Pet Owners for details of our fixed prices. Fixed prices are unusual in the veterinary industry, and it is unlikely that your own vet will offer fixed prices and follow up x-rays free of further charge unless you have agreed this with them in advance.
Cases done as mobile surgeries at a client’s home practice will almost always have the follow up consults and x-rays done there too. We have a hand-held X-ray generator at Burton on Trent that we use for taking follow up X-rays for many orthopaedic procedures as outpatients, without the need for sedation etc. We can use this, if necessary, for the follow up X-rays on cases that were operated on as “mobile” cases at their own practice. But these cases would obviously need to travel to Burton on Trent for the follow up. There would be a modest charge for such follow up radiography as our fixed price system is for cases that we originally operated on at Burton on Trent.
How long have West Midlands Referrals been doing referral work and how much experience do you have?
West Midlands Referrals opened in June 2011 and by 2021 we had 6 referral surgeons. We have decades of referral experience between us and we have done many thousands of fracture cases and stifle surgeries like cruciate ligament ruptures and patella luxations. We do plenty of soft tissue surgeries including ear canal surgeries, perineal hernia repair, laryngeal tie backs and tumour resections. We do spinal surgery every week or two. Joint replacements occur perhaps every other week. Twelve-hour days are far from uncommon for the vets. So yes, we keep busy!! Have a look at our case studies section to give an idea of the range and depth of the surgery that we do in the disciplines of orthopaedics, soft tissue, spines and medicine.
