The People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) is the UK’s leading veterinary charity, founded in 1917 by Maria Dicken. It provides free and low-cost treatments to animals whose owners are on benefits and live within the catchment area of one of the 48 PDSA pet hospitals. Besides treating sick and injured animals, they also provide preventive services such as vaccinations, microchipping and neutering at cost price.
Meet Sophie:
I first heard of the PDSA when I was about ten years old. My nan lived next door to the Everton hospital in Liverpool and would often take there her cockatiel to have his nails and beak trimmed.
After I had finished my GCSE exams, I sent a bunch of letters to many veterinary practices, asking if they trained veterinary nurses.
Included in those letters was Everton PDSA, but they replied that they no longer train student vet nurses.
When I stepped into the veterinary world, three years later, I heard very little of the PDSA. It wasn’t until I decided to become a locum vet nurse that those four letters resurfaced in an e-mail.
It was a job advert for a temporary vet nurse in Liverpool, on a six-month contract.
The locum recruitment agency explained this would be a great opportunity for me to develop my nursing skills, as the practice had a high and diverse caseload. I was currently working at my training practice and doing very little vet nursing duties.
With encouragement from the agency and my family, I applied and secured an interview a couple of days later.
At the interview, I was asked by the head nurse why I was leaving a permanent job for a temporary one? It was a simple answer: I wanted to actually work as a veterinary nurse.
A day later I accepted the job and joined the PDSA in 2012, one year after qualifying (holy f**k!).
During my first week, I hardly ate my lunch. I felt so overwhelmed. The nursing team seemed to be doing all sorts, from positioning patients for x-rays to placing intravenous catheters in rabbits.
As lovely as it was to see, I had little to no experience in these areas and felt inadequate.
My training practice, which I had just left, had only one theatre. I now had the choice of three theatres! How much surgery goes on here? I thought.
I was delighted to discover that theatre lasted all day and was hugely varied: femoral head and neck excision (FHNE) in cats and total ear canal ablation (TECA) in dogs, to name just two.
The following week I was down on the rota to do a full week of nurse consultations. At my previous practice, most nurse consultations involved applying a topical flea solution to the patient, in the reception area.
Now I was to see patients in my own, well-stocked nurse’s room, for all sorts of reasons: nail clips, weight checks, second vaccinations, microchips, sutures out, post-op checks, bandage changes, blood samples, skin scrapes and in-patient discharges.
If a patient arrived without an appointment to see the vet, they were put on the nurse’s diary to triage. This initially panicked me as I had never done a clinical examination on a patient before – what would I do, say or ask?
But as someone rightly said, think of it as answering a phone call from a client who has a particular concern. You ask the relevant questions to determine what the problem is. It’s just now you will have both client and patient in front of you in the nurse’s room. Write down not only the answers given but what you see…
I had dealt with thousands of calls, all for various reasons, over the last three years… this I could do.
Within a month, I slowly got to know the rather large, diverse team. It was made up of ten vets, seven nurses, five veterinary care assistants (VCA), six receptionists and three animal care assistants (ACA) who worked out of hours.
Good job everyone wore a name badge.
At first, I couldn’t believe there were designated receptionists to deal with clients. Would I never have to pick up the phone again? I wishfully wondered…
Over the next six months, I quickly developed a variety of nursing skills, due to the fast pace of the hospital and different nursing shifts.
The most challenging, yet satisfying task I carried out was suturing up a wound under the patient guidance of a vet.
How different it felt standing on that side of the table with a scalpel blade in my hand!
It’s safe to say I definitely had what the PDSA vets called “spay cheeks” – which describes a flushed face after finishing a tricky spay.
As I loved everything about the place – the supportive team, the modern building, the varied caseload and the generally nice clients – I eagerly signed a permanent contract.
My initial plan was to locum, but I didn’t want my time there to be up so soon. I was sceptical about whether I could find another practice that used their nurses to their full potential like here.
The different areas we covered were:
Theatre Dispensary Kennels Consultations Laboratory Isolation
Theatre involved working one-on-one with a veterinary surgeon to assist with the following:
- Preparing patients for surgery or diagnostic imaging
- Monitoring anaesthetics
- Assisting in operations
- Taking radiographs
- Managing wounds
- Applying dressings
- Performing dental scale and polishes
- Carrying out minor surgery
Dispensary involved:
- Counting out medication prescribed by a veterinary surgeon
- Organising repeat prescriptions
- Dealing with enquires from clients at the dispensary window
Kennels involved:
- In-patient care under the direction of a veterinary surgeon:
- Observing and monitoring
- Administering medication
- Administering fluid therapy
- Providing mental stimulation
- Updating owners
Consultations were held in the nurses’ room and involved:
- Various check appointments:
- Post-operative checks – wound checks and sutures out
- Weight-checks
- Anal gland checks
- Second vaccination +/- microchip
- Nail clip
- Triage
- In-patient discharge
- Collect samples:
- Blood
- Skin scrapes, hair plucks, tape impressions
Laboratory involved:
- Running samples for in-house testing:
- Blood
- Dermatology
- Urine
- Packaging samples for external testing
Isolation in a separate ward for patients with infectious diseases involved:
- In-patient care under the direction of a veterinary surgeon:
- Observing and monitoring
- Administering medication
- Administering fluid therapy
- Providing mental stimulation
A few years later, I attended my first veterinary conference and exhibition at the London Vet Show. It was paid for in full out of my CPD budget.
Each time I was asked what practice I worked at, I was honestly proud to say PDSA. Everyone knew of the PDSA and was quick to give me plenty of extra freebies!
It was nice to see many of the sales representatives that had given a lunch and learn talk at the hospital there too.
After four pleasant years working at Kirkdale PDSA, I left to go travelling. With a heavy heart, I said goodbye to the place that made me the veterinary nurse I am today.
But all was not over just yet…
In 2017, I returned from travelling, after seven months, to dive straight back into vet nursing as a locum vet nurse.
After a year of locumming, I came to realise I wanted stability, and those four letters popped into my head once again; PDSA. There was nowhere else I wanted to work.
I thoroughly enjoyed working for this charity; seeing everyone do their damn best, with the resources available, for the good of the patient.
I luckily secured a job at the Huyton hospital, in Liverpool, where I knew the building and several faces after having worked there many weekends when I was at Kirkdale.
It felt bloody good to be back!
The nurse’s shifts at Huyton were pretty much the same as at Kirkdale. However, the kennel shift at Huyton was much more hands-on.
On an average day, the kennels housed twenty in-patients, with a range of conditions from a blocked cat to a dog recovering from a splenectomy. You worked closely with the kennel vet and VCA. It was hard but rewarding.
In 2019, I left Huyton PDSA to head back out travelling. Any excuse for us to throw one of those iconic farewell buffets and make a Greek salad.
It’s nice to finally see PDSA train student vet nurses again as I feel there’s no nurse like a PDSA nurse.
Further posts…
My Time as a Locum Vet Nurse in the UK
Meet Sophie: Deciding to locum in 2012, a year after having qualified, was a daunting thought for me. My training practice, which I am still grateful for to this day, gave me very little opportunity to utilise or develop…
A Vet Nurse Working as a Sales Representative in the UK
Meet Stella: I decided I wanted to work with animals after going home for lunch from working for a photo gallery and watching the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) animal rescue show back in…
A Vet Nurse Working in Oman
Sarah is a qualified registered veterinary nurse (RVN) for six years. She has been in practice for thirteen years and has experience in first opinion, emergency critical care (ECC) and referral nursing. Her particular interest is in surgical nursing.…
Veterinary Blog 
That’s a great description of what is out there for vet nurses.
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