Emergency Treatment
As the country adjusted to the first lockdown, so did our dedicated veterinary teams. With 80% of our consultations now taking place remotely, our vets and vet nurses began a rota of home and hospital working. This allowed clinically vulnerable staff to shield, while still helping pets in need.
Reserving face-to-face appointments for life-saving emergencies meant our hospital waiting rooms were no longer overflowing with pets and owners. We provided the emergency veterinary care pets desperately needed while remaining socially distant, and limiting contact reduced the risk of our Pet Hospitals having to close.
The vital funds raised by players of People's Postcode Lottery helped support these emergency appointments and operations. Funds raised by players paid for all the emergency and essential operations performed by our vets during the pandemic for pets eligible for our free service – that's over 15,000 pet lives saved thanks to players. These ranged from orthopaedic operations to abdominal surgery.
Additionally, 40% of the face-to-face emergency appointments (total 139,297) our vets completed for pets eligible for our free service (from March to December 2020) were funded by the generosity of players – an incredible 52,000.
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We have always been a nation of animal lovers, but pets became more vital than ever during lockdown, providing much-needed companionship to owners during periods of extended isolation. Results from our tenth PAW Report (which was funded by players) showed just how important pets have been in 2020.
Your support has helped protect these special relationships. And, as thousands of people felt the financial effects of the pandemic – with redundancies, reduced working hours and unemployment growing – you helped remove the worry of unexpected veterinary bills from owners in need.
