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Anything you say to us is completely confidential.
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Support via email from Vetlife Helpline
Vetlife Helpline is an independent, confidential and free listening service for vets, veterinary nurses, students and all other staff working in veterinary workplaces. We also support family or colleagues who are concerned about someone. All calls and emails are completely confidential. It’s anonymous too – you can make up a name if you want.
Calls and emails are answered by trained volunteers who have experience of the profession. We are here to listen and offer emotional support and a non-judgmental space to talk about how things are for you and whatever is on your mind. People contact us for all sorts of reasons, sometimes related to veterinary work and often for reasons outside of work.
How can you be confident the email support service is confidential and secure?
Before your message is seen by volunteers, your email address is automatically removed and replaced with a random number. The server will match this number to other emails you send, but no identifying details from your email address or your location will be viewable by any of our staff.
Emails are kept on a secure server for 30 days so that if you want to email us again, we can see that you have contacted us before. After 30 days, all emails are automatically deleted. We don’t keep messages longer than this. If you want to keep a record of your own messages and our replies, you can copy them from the site and save them elsewhere.
We take your confidentiality very seriously. If you share information with us which identifies a child or adult at risk who is suffering abuse or harm we may contact other relevant services. We would discuss this with you. We can only do this if we have information which is identifying.
When will I get a reply?
We undertake to reply to your email within 24 hours.
Prefer to speak to us on the phone?
You are still welcome to call us on 0303 040 2551.
Experiencing technical difficulties with registration?
Occasionally people experience technical difficulties with registration. If this happens please check your junk or spam folder for messages. If this doesn’t work and you are still unable to register please use our phone service instead, which is available 24 hours a day on 0303 040 2551. You don’t need to give your real name and your call will be confidential.
Getting in touch
Vetlife Helpline provides support to veterinary professionals. We do not provide veterinary advice about animals to the public. If you’re part of the veterinary community you can contact Vetlife Helpline for support. Vetlife Helpline is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year. The veterinary community includes vets, veterinary nurses, student vets and nurses, and anyone working in a veterinary workplace.
You can contact Vetlife Helpline by phone or email
To email, register for an account and send a message via this site. To phone please call 0303 040 2551.
What happens when you phone
Vetlife Helpline uses an answering service, so the phone will be answered by a real person but it won’t be the person you will talk to for support. When the call is answered please just give a first name (doesn’t have to be your real name) and a phone number and the volunteer on duty will call you back. We aim to always call back within an hour. Sometimes at night it may be possible to transfer your call to the volunteer on duty. You may also be asked when you call whether you are a veterinary professional. This is because we get a lot of calls from the public looking for veterinary advice for their pets, which we cannot provide. If you’re a veterinary professional please just confirm this – you don’t need to say your exact job role or where you work, and wait for the call back from the person on duty. You don’t need to tell the person who first answers the phone what you’re calling about, you can just say you’re calling for support, that you’re a veterinary professional, and give a first name and phone number. All phone numbers are destroyed and not retained. Vetlife Helpline is a very confidential service. You can read more about our confidentiality here. If you don’t want to leave a name and number please use our email service – you can be anonymous on the email service if you wish.
