Dr Kathleen Cooney

"Recruiting the right team members is vital," says Dr Kathleen Cooney

In the second of her lectures on animal hospice at the London Vet Show, Dr Kathleen Cooney talked about how animal hospice can be offered by general veterinary practice.

Kathleen's practice in Colorado is a 95 per cent mobile practice, but she still sees a small number of clients in her small practice building.

Recruiting the right members for the hospice team is vital. They must all have the same values, attitudes and empathy, and will encompass a variety of skills which together provide a complete hospice service.

Core team members are vets and nurses, but whether you are providing a bespoke hospice service, or incorporating hospice into a busy practice, it is still vital to be able to call upon a variety of other people and skills. For example grief counsellors, alternative therapists, after-care services, and pet cremation services.

Clients opting to put their pet into a hospice are given a care plan. This is created after the veterinary surgeon has listened to the clients goals, given a physical examination, considered client psychological concerns, and has set up the details of hospice care and communication protocols.

The hospice care plan is likely to have three levels of care:

Palliative care - this is where there is no real life-limiting condition - the pet is simply old, in decline, and perhaps lacking mobility.

Early hospice care - where the animal has a time-limiting diagnosis with death expected within two to three months.

Advanced hospice care - in these cases the illness is advanced and death would be expected within days or weeks.

Communication is a vital part of hospice care and enables the client to receive maximum support from the practice. In the case of palliative care, the practice would talk to the client at least every month, for early hospice care communication would be weekly, and for advanced hospice care this would be daily.

Hospice care does come at a cost to the client and Kathleen explained how important it is to explain very clearly and have agreement with the client regarding the costs, which of course relate back to the expenses of the practice.

Hospice care is new to the UK and it may be that UK practices adopt slightly different approaches to this area of pet care. However, there is no doubt that it is a service which, for some clients, would be extremely helpful. There are currently a small number of practices offering forms of hospice and mobile euthanasia services, but it is likely that this will be growing in the very near future.

For more information on animal hospice go to www.IAAHPC.org.