Southend Vet Celebrates Gold Standard Cat-Friendly Status

With their fifth year as an accredited cat-friendly 24-hour veterinary hospital, the practice team based in Southend are celebrating achieving the Gold standard award; the highest possible from ISFM.

The programme, developed by The International Society of Feline Medicine, the veterinary division of the leading feline charity International Cat Care, aims to promote wellbeing and high standards of care for all cats visiting, or being hospitalised at, Medivet 24 Hour Southend.

Dedicated Cat Advocates Oliver, Ivo, Simone, Janice, Carrie, Cathy, Paige, Danielle, Jody, Ellie, and, of course, Practice cat Gary, are delighted with their Gold standard status and look forward to welcoming more cats to the practice.

To become a cat-friendly clinic, the practice has to meet a set of requirements. These include, but aren’t limited to:

• Staff understand cats’ specific needs and know how to approach and handle them.
• All staff have a good knowledge and equipment to manage cat care.
• The practice has a dedicated Cat Advocate to ensure all cat friendly standards are adhered to.
• The practice avoids direct contact between cats and dogs.
• Routine consultations are a minimum of 10 minutes long to minimise stress and allow for cat-friendly handling.
• The practice uses natural pheromones throughout the premises to help calm cats.

Find out more about our cat-friendly clinics here.