The Practice
Holisticvet is based between Bath and Chippenham, in Wiltshire.
Visits can be easily arranged to horses and dogs throughout the country. Please phone reception on 01225 487778. As a fully qualified vet, I am able to offer a broad range of holistic and more conventional therapies at my practice.
“Thank you for an excellent consultation today. It is so good to find a vet who takes time to assess your animal properly and talk through the various options with you in the truest holistic sense!”Denyse Ritz
Questions & Answers
Q. Please give us a range of activities you undertake, including a description of a ‘typical’ week – if such a thing exists!
A. Most of the time I’m based in Bath doing small animal work, writing, preparing seminars, keeping up with email and phone messages and running the business. I’m often in the car to see equine and canine cases. I have clients all over the U.K., in France, Belgium and Spain with whom I also work frequently.
I spend a lot of time on the phone following up small animal and equine cases, but only where I have seen the animal initially and the referring vet has that animal under their care.
My cases are a mixture of referrals from conventional colleagues, second opinion cases driven by a client or primary cases where a vet may not have seen the case before. I will sometimes ask vets to do a few further tests to clarify a diagnosis. We do not have x-ray or ultrasound scanning facilities at the practice, but frequently take blood for titre teasing, thyroid testing (with Hemopet Laboratories in the U.S.) and more general blood work, using UK labs.
Q. What are the attitudes to your business on the part of, firstly, vets in general practice; and secondly, animal owners?
A. Colleagues in practice are very helpful and are mostly sympathetic to what I’m doing. But, when I get the inevitable “I’ll be very interested to see what happens with so-and-so”, I often hear notes of disbelief in their voices. Animal owners are the opposite. They are generally very knowledgeable and enthusiastic, bearing in mind that this is a subgroup who will actively seek out holistic therapies for their pets and horses.
Q. Taking stock – with the business up and running for over 15 years, how closely has it matched your expectations, and what hopes/goals do you have for the business in future?
A. I never thought the practice would be this popular, if I’m honest! I’m delighted to be able to talk to so many people every day who are as passionate about their animals as I am about holistic medicine. Acupuncture is, thankfully, a common therapy in many UK practices now. Raw food is becoming available in a number of vet waiting rooms and herbs are finding their way into medicinal products used by most conventional vets. The world is changing in our direction and I’m delighted to be part of it.
I would like to see veterinary practices taking even more advantage of the benefits an integrated holistic approach to medicine can offer. Holistic veterinary therapies are a very real form of medicine. The public want them for themselves and are more and more aware they are available for their animals. As a profession we need to embrace a new approach to healing our patients to maintain our credibility and our patient’s best interests.
Book an appoinment
Dr. Nick Thompson
BSc (Vet Sci) Hons, BVM&S, VetMFHom, MRCVS.
The Veterinary Practice
The Bungalow
Slaughterford
SN14 8RH
United Kingdom
Email: nickthompson@holisticvet.co.uk
Tel: 01225 487778
Fax: 07092 233930