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RSPCA Animal Clinic
1 Pool Way
Whitehill Road
Cambridge
CB5 8NT
01223 247 986
Our subsidised animal clinic in Cambridge is for pet owners who cannot afford to pay for treatment at a private vet. Staff and hospital facilities for the clinic are provided by the University of Cambridge Veterinary School who use it as a teaching centre where their students can see real-life cases being treated by qualified vets. Because of the value of our clinic for teaching, the University charges us less than a commercial rate.
Users of the clinic must bring proof of benefits or paperwork such as a bank-statement which shows that they have a very low income each time they visit the clinic. If you are unable to bring your pet yourself it's fine for a helper to bring them for you, but the helper must show proof that you are in receipt of benefit and needs to have a signed note from you confirming that they are bringing the animal on your behalf.
There is a basic £7 charge per visit, plus the cost price of any medicines prescribed for your pet.
If your dog is not vaccinated and starts vomiting or has diarrhoea DO NOT let them mix with other dogs and phone your vet for advice. If you have more than one dog, keep the sick one away from the ones who are still healthy. Contact your vet by phone for advice before getting the healthy dogs vaccinated - they may be carrying the disease and it is important that they are not brought into contact with other dogs.
Tuesday: 9-10.30 am Open surgery
Wednesday: 9-10.30 am Vaccination, Microchipping, neutering pre-checks and post-operative stitch removal only. If you are bringing a puppy or dog for their first vaccinations we advise that you come to the Wednesday session and not one of the open surgeries to avoid bringing them into contact with other dogs who may already be carrying infection. If possible, leave the puppy in your car while you register and only bring them into the building when it is your turn to see the vet. Carry them so that they do not risk picking up infection from where other dogs have walked.
Thursday: 9-10.30 am Open surgery
Saturday: 9-10.30 am Open surgery
There is no appointment system at the clinic and animals are seen on a first-come, first served basis, except that some very infectious cases may have to be seen last. Registration normally begins at about 8.30 and no further cases will be admitted after 10.30 although everyone who has arrived by then will be seen. On busy days this will mean a long wait.Suspected cases of infection CAN NOT be seen at the clinic at the Wednesday session to avoid risk to the young animals who are there for their first vaccinations.
Registered clinic patients only are eligible for out of hours emergency treatment. This is charged at a higher rate than normal sessions in order to prevent the service being abused for non-urgent cases.
If your animal is registered with the clinic and has an infection which cannot wait until the following day, you should phone the number on your registration card for advice on what to do.
Kitten and puppy vaccinations are charged at £10 for the first vaccination and £8 for the booster 3 weeks later. Boosters should be given each subsequent year and are charged at £10.
Rabbit vaccinations are £7 and need to be repeated at 6 month intervals.
Cambridge is a very high-risk area for myxomatosis, which is a distressing and almost always fatal disease of rabbits. The virus which causes the disease can be transmitted from wild rabbits to tame ones by biting insects such as mosquitos without any need for direct contact. It is very important that all pet rabbits are vaccinated to protect them against this killer disease.
Cambridge is also a high-risk area for canine parvo-virus which causes vomiting, diarrhoea and bleeding from the intestines and is often fatal. Vaccination will protect your pet, but remember that vaccinations need to be kept up with yearly boosters to be fully effective.
If your cat or dog has a litter and you plan to sell the puppies or kittens it is unfair to other owners to use our clinic for their vaccinations. You should charge the purchasers enough to cover the cost of the initial vaccinations at a private vet. Our staff have instructions to refuse to vaccinate litters of pedigree puppies where they have reasonable grounds to believe that the puppies will be sold for profit.
If possible, please try to bring animals needing vaccination only to the Wednesday session. This relieves pressure on the other "open surgery" days so that ill animals can be seen more quickly and it also reduces the risk that your puppy or kitten could pick up an infection from sick animals waiting in the surgery.
To put your pet on the waiting list for neutering, you need to bring them to the Wednesday session, for a pre-operation health check. Payment should be made at this point and is £12.50 for male cats, rabbits and ferrets; £20 for female cats, rabbits and ferrets; £30 for male dogs and £35 for bitches.
Neutering will prevent your pet from having unwanted litters and has health benefits for most animals - for example it will greatly reduce the risk of tom cats contracting diseases from wandering and fighting other male cats. In the case of rabbits it will make it possible for a male and female to live together and this is usually a much more harmonious pairing than two females or two males.
Please note that we can ONLY accept pets whose owners are on means-tested benefits for vaccinations, neutering operations and microchipping and anyone not on such benefits will have to be sent away. Users of the clinic must bring proof of benefits or paperwork such as a bank-statement which proves they have a very low income each time they visit the clinic.
We can only see a limited number of animals, so we have to restrict use of the clinic to pensioners and people on means-tested state benefits. In an average week, the clinic treats around 80 animals, mainly cats and dogs. Users of the clinic must bring proof of benefits or something such as a bank-statement which proves they have a very low income every time they visit the clinic.
We pay the University a fee of £2,500 per month, plus an additional charge for each vaccination, micro-chip insertion or neutering operation they do.
Pet owners are charged £7 for a consultation, plus the cost price of any drugs their animals are prescribed. Operations are charged at cost price, excluding the value of the operating surgeon's time. On average this means that the owner covers half of what it costs the branch to provide treatment for their animal.
You can view a short video which includes scenes of our clinic in action via the BBC website. Their video archive also has some footage of the somewhat similiar, but mobile, RSPCA branch clinic in Bolton.
All of the reception staff who handle the clerical work at the clinic are unpaid volunteers. Clinic reception involves dealing with sometimes very distressed people in a high-pressure environment and our receptionists are very special people.
If you are interested in volunteering to help with clinic reception, please email reception@rspca-cambridge.org.uk. We aim to have two volunteers at each clinic session: one interviewing clients and checking their details and the other entering information on the computer system.
We will be holding a training day in February. This will probably be on a Sunday, to avoid clashing with working clinic sessions. Training will involve some rôle-play simulating the process of booking people in and dealing with common problems (e.g. client has forgotten to bring proof of benefit) and practice using the computers to register new animals. Basic familiarity with using computers would be helpful, but no specialised knowledge is needed.
Please email reception@rspca-cambridge.org.uk if you would like to come to the training day. It would be helpful if you could indicate which Sundays in February or early March you could manage, so that we can pick a date which suits the majority of people.
Because of the high-pressure nature of the work, we would ideally like to have enough helpers so that people can volunteer once a fortnight rather than every week.
Space is limited, so it is only possible to have maximum of two new volunteers per session. New volunteers generally start by sitting in with an experienced team, then gradually do a greater variety of reception tasks until they feel confident.
Without our veterinary support for low income pet owners it is very likely that even more animals would be dumped or handed over to the local dog warden - and very probably put to sleep. You can view a short video clip about the influence of veterinary costs on animal abandonments via the bbc online archive.
Flow Chart to show how requests for help with veterinary treatment are handled
History of the Cambridge RSPCA Clinic
