Key takeaways
Vets Now Glasgow is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2026.
The hospital was the first dedicated out-of-hours emergency veterinary provider of its kind in the UK.
More than 15,000 pets are treated at the hospital each year.
The hospital provides services including oncology, orthopaedics, diagnostic imaging and emergency and critical care.
Advanced treatments now available include Therapeutic Plasma Exchange (TPE) and specialist cancer therapies.
For 25 years, our Vets Now Glasgow has been helping pets through some of their most critical moments, from life-threatening injuries and poisonings to complex cancer treatments and intensive care.
What began in 2001 as a pioneering out-of-hours service has grown into one of the UK's leading emergency and veterinary hospitals. Today, a team of more than 150 colleagues at the North Street hospital care for over 15,000 pets each year, providing advanced treatments and specialist expertise that have transformed outcomes for thousands of animals.
"We treat over 15,000 pets every year, and many of them are the sickest of the sick," said Hospital Director Arlene Connor.
"We have one of the largest Emergency and Critical Care teams in the UK and highly trained ICU staff available 24 hours a day. Patients coming to us are surviving now that wouldn't have made it in the past."
A pioneering idea born in Glasgow
Vets Now was founded in Glasgow by veterinary surgeon Richard Dixon, who recognised the challenges facing vets and nurses expected to work all day before remaining on call throughout the night.
His vision was simple but revolutionary: dedicated emergency teams providing care when local veterinary practices were closed.
Arlene remembers those early days well. She was working as a veterinary nurse at the PDSA clinic in Glasgow when the first Vets Now teams began operating there.
"It was a totally new concept, with no one else in the country offering out-of-hours cover for nights and weekends on this scale," she said.
"In those days it was just one vet and one nurse. We would have emergencies from clients at all the first opinion practices who used us, as well as PDSA clients.
"As it was essentially an A&E service for pets, the shifts could be pretty wild.
"During the times where we weren't expecting cases to arrive, the vet and I would take it in turns to have rest periods. One of us would take the phones and one of us would take the patients in.
"We had two phones to man, and I remember dreaming of the different phone ring tones in my sleep."
From those beginnings, Vets Now has expanded across the UK and now operates 60 clinics, alongside emergency and hospitals in Manchester and Birmingham that mirror the Glasgow hospital model.
Caring for pets 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
The Glasgow hospital is open around the clock, every day of the year, treating everything from road traffic accidents and poisonings to sudden illness and complex medical conditions.
After moving to the North Street site in 2009, a major expansion in 2018 transformed the hospital across three floors and allowed specialist services to grow even further.
Today, the hospital is home to teams specialising in oncology, internal medicine, orthopaedics, soft tissue surgery, diagnostic imaging and Emergency and Critical Care.
"Members of the team are here 24 hours a day, every day, looking after the very sickest patients. If they need to be hospitalised in ICU for weeks on end, be put on a ventilator or have multiple blood transfusions, we can do that."
Treatments that weren't possible 25 years ago
One of the biggest changes over the past quarter century has been the advancement of veterinary medicine.
The hospital now provides cutting-edge treatments including Therapeutic Plasma Exchange (TPE), a procedure where plasma is removed from the blood and replaced with healthy donor plasma to help treat severe intoxications or autoimmune diseases.
One recent patient was admitted after her immune system began destroying her own platelets.
"She hadn't responded to more standard therapies, so we did TPE to remove the antibodies from the plasma attacking the platelets," said Arlene.
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