Terms & Conditions

Website terms & conditions

1. Introduction

1.1 These terms and conditions shall govern your use of our website.

1.2 By using our website, you accept these terms and conditions in full; accordingly, if you disagree with these terms and conditions or any

part of these terms and conditions, you must not use our website.

1.3 If you register with our website, submit any material to our website or use any of our website services, we will ask you to expressly agree to these terms and conditions.

1.4 You must be at least 16 years of age to use our website; by using our website or agreeing to these terms and conditions, you warrant and represent to us that you are at least 16 years of age.

2. Copyright notice

2.2 Subject to the express provisions of these terms and conditions:

(a) we, together with our licensors, own and control all the copyright and other intellectual property rights in our website and the material on our website; and

(b) all the copyright and other intellectual property rights in our website and the material on our website are reserved.

3. Permission to use website

3.1 You may:

(a) view pages from our website in a web browser;

(b) download pages from our website for caching in a web browser;

(c) print pages from our website for your own personal and non-commercial use, providing that such printing is not systematic or excessive;

(d) stream audio and video files from our website using the media player on our website; and

(e) use our website services by means of a web browser, subject to the other provisions of these terms and conditions.

3.2 Except as expressly permitted by Section 3.1 or the other provisions of these terms and conditions, you must not download any material from our website or save any such material to your computer.

3.3 You may only use our website for your own personal and business purposes; you must not use our website for any other purposes.

3.4 Except as expressly permitted by these terms and conditions, you must not edit or otherwise modify any material on our website.

3.5 Unless you own or control the relevant rights in the material, you must not:

(a) republish material from our website (including republication on another website);

(b) sell, rent or sub-license material from our website;

(d) exploit material from our website for a commercial purpose; or

(e) redistribute material from our website.

3.6 Notwithstanding Section 3.5, you may redistribute our newsletter in print and electronic form to any person.

3.7 We reserve the right to suspend or restrict access to our website, to areas of our website and/or to functionality upon our website. We may, for example, suspend access to the website during server maintenance or when we update the website. You must not circumvent or bypass, or attempt to circumvent or bypass, any access restriction measures on the website.

4. Misuse of website

4.1 You must not:

(a) use our website in any way or take any action that causes, or may cause, damage to the website or impairment of the performance, availability, accessibility, integrity or security of the website;

(b) use our website in any way that is unlawful, illegal, fraudulent or harmful, or in connection with any unlawful, illegal, fraudulent or harmful purpose or activity;

(d) probe, scan or test the vulnerability of our website without our permission;

(e) circumvent any authentication or security systems or processes on or relating to our website;

(f) use our website to copy, store, host, transmit, send, use, publish or distribute any material which consists of (or is linked to) any spyware, computer virus, Trojan horse, worm, keystroke logger, rootkit or other malicious computer software;

(g) impose an unreasonably large load on our website resources (including bandwidth, storage capacity and processing capacity);

(h) decrypt or decipher any communications sent by or to our website without our permission;

(i) conduct any systematic or automated data collection activities (including without limitation scraping, data mining, data extraction and data harvesting) on or in relation to our website without our express written consent;

(j) access or otherwise interact with our website using any robot, spider or other automated means, except for the purpose of search engine indexing;

(k) use our website except by means of our public interfaces;

(l) violate the directives set out in the robots.txt file for our website;

(m) use data collected from our website for any direct marketing activity (including without limitation email marketing, SMS marketing, telemarketing and direct mailing); or

(n) do anything that interferes with the normal use of our website.

4.2 You must not use data collected from our website to contact individuals, companies or other persons or entities.

4.3 You must ensure that all the information you supply to us through our website, or in relation to our website, is true, accurate, current, complete and non- misleading.

5. Limited warranties

5.1 We do not warrant or represent:

(a) the completeness or accuracy of the information published on our website;

(b) that the material on the website is up to date;

(d) that the website or any service on the website will remain available.

5.2 We reserve the right to discontinue or alter any or all of our website services, and to stop publishing our website, at any time in our sole discretion without notice or explanation; and save to the extent expressly provided otherwise in these terms and conditions, you will not be entitled to any compensation or other payment upon the discontinuance or alteration of any website services, or if we stop publishing the website.

5.3 To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law and subject to Section 6.1, we exclude all representations and warranties relating to the subject matter of these terms and conditions, our website and the use of our website.

6. Limitations and exclusions of liability

6.1 Nothing in these terms and conditions will:

(a) limit or exclude any liability for death or personal injury resulting from negligence;

(b) limit or exclude any liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation;

(d) exclude any liabilities that may not be excluded under applicable law.

6.2 The limitations and exclusions of liability set out in this Section 6 and elsewhere in these terms and conditions:

(a) are subject to Section 6.1; and

(b) govern all liabilities arising under these terms and conditions or relating to the subject matter of these terms and conditions, including liabilities arising in contract, in tort (including negligence) and for breach of statutory duty, except to the extent expressly provided otherwise in these terms and conditions.

6.3 To the extent that our website and the information and services on our website are provided free of charge, we will not be liable for any loss or damage of any nature.

6.4 We will not be liable to you in respect of any losses arising out of any event or events beyond our reasonable control.

6.5 We will not be liable to you in respect of any business losses, including (without limitation) loss of or damage to profits, income, revenue, use, production, anticipated savings, business, contracts, commercial opportunities or goodwill.

6.6 We will not be liable to you in respect of any loss or corruption of any data, database or software.

6.7 We will not be liable to you in respect of any special, indirect or consequential loss or damage.

6.8 You accept that we have an interest in limiting the personal liability of our officers and employees and, having regard to that interest, you acknowledge that we are a limited liability entity; you agree that you will not bring any claim personally against our officers or employees in respect of any losses you suffer in connection with the website or these terms and conditions (this will not, of course, limit or exclude the liability of the limited liability entity itself for the acts and omissions of our officers and employees).

7. Breaches of these terms and conditions

7.1 Without prejudice to our other rights under these terms and conditions, if you breach these terms and conditions in any way, or if we reasonably suspect that you have breached these terms and conditions in any way, we may:

(a) send you one or more formal warnings;

(b) temporarily suspend your access to our website;

(d) block computers using your IP address from accessing our website;

(e) contact any or all of your internet service providers and request that they block your access to our website; and/or

(f) commence legal action against you, whether for breach of contract or otherwise.

7.2 Where we suspend or prohibit or block your access to our website or a part of our website, you must not take any action to circumvent such suspension or prohibition or blocking.

8. Variation

8.1 We may revise these terms and conditions from time to time.

8.2 The revised terms and conditions shall apply to the use of our website from the date of publication of the revised terms and conditions on

the website, and you hereby waive any right you may otherwise have to be notified of, or to consent to, revisions of these terms and conditions.

9. Assignment

9.1 You hereby agree that we may assign, transfer, sub-contract or otherwise deal with our rights and/or obligations under these terms and conditions.

9.2 You may not without our prior written consent assign, transfer, sub-contract or otherwise deal with any of your rights and/or obligations under these terms and conditions.

10. Severability

10.1 If a provision of these terms and conditions is determined by any court or other competent authority to be unlawful and/or unenforceable, the other provisions will continue in effect.

10.2 If any unlawful and/or unenforceable provision of these terms and conditions would be lawful or enforceable if part of it were deleted, that part will be deemed to be deleted, and the rest of the provision will continue in effect.

11. Third party rights

11.1 A contract under these terms and conditions is for our benefit and your benefit, and is not intended to benefit or be enforceable by any third party.

11.2 The exercise of the parties' rights under a contract under these terms and conditions is not subject to the consent of any third party.

12. Entire agreement

12.1 Subject to Section 6.1, these terms and conditions, together with our privacy and cookies policy, shall constitute the entire agreement between you and us in relation to your use of our website and shall supersede all previous agreements between you and us in relation to your use of our website.

13. Law and jurisdiction

13.1 These terms and conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English law.

13.2 Any disputes relating to these terms and conditions shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England.

14. Our details

14.1 This website is owned and operated by Small World Vet Centre.

14.2 Our registered office is at Small World Vet Centre, 32 Station Road, Liphook, Hampshire GU30 7DR.

14.3 Our principal place of business is at Small World Vet Centre, 32 Station Road, Liphook, Hampshire GU30 7DR.

14.4 You can contact us:

(a) by post, to the postal address given above;

(b) using our website contact form; or

Small World Vet Centre terms & conditions

Terms of Business

Welcome to our practice. We would like to thank you for entrusting the care and attention of your pet to Small World Vet Centre. We would ask that you take a few moments to read the following terms of business. If any of the details are unclear please ask for further clarification.

Clients should be aware that all calls to Small World Vet Centre are recorded for training and monitoring purposes.

Fees

All fees, diets and drug charges are subject to VAT at the current rate. Fee levels are determined by the time spent on a case and according to the drugs, materials, consumables and diets used. The cost of most routine surgery includes the cost of one post-operative check, but does not include the cost of any further consultations, dressings, consumables or drugs used. We are happy to provide estimates as to the probable costs of a course of treatment upon request. It remains the owner’s responsibility to ensure that they have received an estimate of the costs of treatment prior to it being administered if they have concerns about their ability to pay. Please bear in mind that any estimate given can only be approximate – often an pet's illness will not follow a typical course. Therefore costs may vary according to the response to treatment or other factors.

Methods and terms of payment

Settlement is expected at the end of a consultation and at the time when drugs or food are collected. We can accept electronic payment (e.g. Stripe), cash or credit card. Only in exceptional circumstances can the practice allow a delay in payment. Delayed payments must be agreed with the veterinary surgeon prior to treatment, with a written note made on the client’s records. We reserve the right to request that any delay in payment must be in the form of a standing order with your bank. Payments can be made over the phone or via PetsApp.

Should an account not be settled within 14 days then a reminder will be sent. Further reminders will incur an additional accounting fee in respect of administrative costs incurred. The practice reserves the right to use debt collection agencies at any stage where agreed payment plans have not been complied with, or where the practice is concerned about non-payment. Further charges will be levied in respect of costs incurred in collecting the debt.

Any cheques returned by our bank as unpaid, any credit card payment not honoured, and any cash tendered that is found to be counterfeit will result in the original account being restored to the original sum with further charges and administrative costs together with interest on the principle sum.

Pet Insurance

We strongly support the principle of insuring your pet against unexpected illness or accident. Under the Financial Services Act we are unable to recommend any particular insurance policy, but we do have an information sheet to help guide you on your choice of policy. We would generally recommend a “for life” policy. In most cases you will be responsible for settling our bill at the time of treatment and then claiming reimbursement of the amounts covered by your policy from your insurance company. For bills in excess of £300 we can usually make a claim for your insurance company to pay us directly, as long as you provide us with a signed and completed claim form within 5 working days of invoicing. You will need to pay the policy excess at the time of treatment. Any outstanding amount not covered by the insurers will be due for payment immediately after the insurers have settled the claim. In the unlikely event that a claim for direct payment has not been settled within 6 weeks we will require you to settle the account directly with us. Any claims for ongoing treatment will need to be paid by you at the time, and claimed back from your insurance company. If you require further help please ask for our “How to make a claim” guide sheet or ask a member of the team

Phone Calls

It is our policy to record all phone calls coming into and going out of the practice. These recordings will be used in the case of a complaint or dispute.

Repeat Examinations and Repeat Prescriptions

It is practice policy that any pet with an ongoing illness is re-assessed by a vet at intervals of not more than three months. Regular monitoring of your pet ensures that we comply with the appropriate medicines legislation and that best results are achieved. In some cases of chronic disease we can offer repeat prescriptions without the need to see your pet. All requests for repeat medication have to be authorised by one of our veterinary surgeons. Request for repeat prescriptions can be made by our PetsApp, email or by telephone. We would ask you to give us at least one working day’s notice before the medicines are available for collection.

Patient records

Patient records are the property of Small World Vet Centre, but clients are free at any stage to request a copy of computer record of their pet’s clinical case notes. 24 hours notice is required. The practice reserves the right to make a charge to cover the cost of producing these records. This charge will be notified to the client at the time of the request or as soon as reasonably feasible thereafter. No charge is made when transferring clinical notes to another veterinary practice.

Ownership of patient records other than clinical notes

The care given to a patient may require specific investigations, for example, radiographs or ultrasound scans. A professional fee is charged for carrying out these investigations and interpreting the results. However ownership of the resulting record, for example, x-ray images, remains with the practice.

Clients are encouraged to view and discuss all x-rays/blood results etc when they collect the patient. In the event of the client moving practices or going to a referral consultation, x-ray images and other documentation may be forwarded directly to that practice when it is felt appropriate.

Home visits

In certain circumstances, we will attempt to comply with owners requests for a home visit. However due to the specialist equipment required for diagnostics and treatment, your pet may be better off coming to see us in our modern, well equipped clinic. Home visits are undertaken at the discretion of the Veterinary Surgeon and are not available outside practice opening hours.

Complaints and Standards

At all times it is our intention to try and ensure the best care for your pet and client satisfaction with the service that is provided, and we hope that you never have cause for complaint. In the event that you are unhappy with any aspect of our service, please raise it with a member of the team. If the proposed resolution is not to your satisfaction, then an appointment can be made with the practice manager to discuss the matter further. Alternatively, you may write to them to the address above if you prefer. Should you be unhappy with the outcome of the dispute, your next step would be to contact the governing body for veterinary surgeons and registered veterinary nurses, The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons www.rcvs.org.uk/home/.

The practice reserves the right to terminate the service it provides to a client and his/her pet. This will be done in writing and allow a 7 day period to permit the client to register with another veterinary practice. We will email patient records on request of the new practice. In the event of verbal or physical abuse to any member of the practice team, the practice reserves the right to provide no further treatment to the pets of the client, and the client will be banned from the practice premises and environs with immediate effect. The practice reserves the right to involve the police where it feels it appropriate.

Any addition or variation to these conditions will be displayed in reception for a period of at least 3 months but we regret we are unable to notify clients individually