What information is SAVSNET collecting?
The information we want to collect is about the pets who visit their vet. We are NOT collecting the owner’s name, house number, street name, or town, the name or address of their vet, or any financial information about how owners pay for their pet’s consultation.
We aim to collect two types of information about pets each time they are brought to the vet.
Type 1: Routine information
This is information that is already recorded by your vet and includes:
- The pet’s species (e.g. cat, dog, rabbit)
- The pet’s breed
- The pet’s date/year of birth
- The pet’s sex (male/female)
- The nature of the condition
- Any treatments given to the pet
- The postcode – this information will help us to see where in the country there is more disease appearing.
An example of what this information may look like is shown below:
Type 2: Simple, but specific additional question(s)
At the end of each consultation, your vet will be asked a few questions about the reason for the visit. Your vet will not need to ask owners anything extra, the questions will be very simple.
An example of the type of questions we will ask is:
Was this pet brought to the vets today because it has diarrhoea?
- Option 1. Yes
- Option 2. No
- Option 3. Owner wishes not to take part in this study
Option 1: If the answer is “yes”, this will be followed by a few simple questions to tell us how severe the diarrhoea may be. For example, “how long has the diarrhoea been going on for?” or “is there any blood in the diarrhoea?” These are simple questions which will give meaningful results, but that we will not unnecessarily delay owners or vets.
Option 2: If the answer is “no”, then your vet will not be asked any further questions.
Option 3: Alternatively, if an owner does not wish not to take part, this is the point at which your vet can exclude all related information from the project (see also FAQ 5). These questions will be changed on a regular basis, so that we can collect information on a wide range of diseases; for example coughing, lameness, etc.