What the vet portal is
The vet portal gives the vet practices you work with their own PetDesk login, so they can give consent for treatment online and refer new clients to you. A practice sees only the animals you link to it: their details, appointments and notes, the owner's contact details and consent status. It needs a paid plan, and one practice login works across every PetDesk business that invites it.
The vet portal gives the vet practices you work with their own login to PetDesk. It's built for physiotherapists, hydrotherapists, veterinary nurses and anyone else who needs a vet's consent before treating an animal, but any business on a paid plan can switch it on.
What it's for
In the UK, the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 means many treatments need the animal's vet to agree first. Without the portal, that consent is a paper form: you print it, the owner takes it to the vet, the vet signs it, and you file it. With the portal, the vet logs in, finds the animal and gives consent online. You get the vet's name, the treatments they've authorised and a time-stamped electronic signature on the animal's record.
It works the other way round too. A vet practice that refers to you regularly can send you a new client, an owner and animal you've never seen, straight from the portal. You then contact the owner to book.
What vets can see
A practice sees only the animals you've linked to it, and nothing else in your business. For each animal it sees the animal's details and notes, its appointment dates with the notes from each, the owner's contact details, the consent status, and, if you choose to share them, its weights. Vets can't change anything except their own practice's contact details.
How it fits together
- Turn the portal on, and choose the treatments vets can authorise.
- Add each vet practice. PetDesk emails it a login.
- Link each animal to its vet, on the animal's record.
- The vet gives consent, and you accept it. A vet can also refer a new client.
Practices that work with several businesses
A vet practice has one email address and password for the whole of PetDesk. If two businesses invite the same practice, say a physiotherapist and a hydrotherapy centre, the practice chooses which one to work with when it logs in. Each business only ever shows the practice its own animals. Guides written for vets are in this category too, and the portal links to them, so you can send a practice a link to For vets: setting up your login.