Emergency Service
Emergency Services
BELL EQUINE offers a 24 hours a day, 365 days a year emergency service for both internal and external referrals for specialist care.
Our hospital is run out of working hours every night, weekend and Bank Holiday by a senior hospital clinician / surgeon, hospital intern (who live on site) and on-call nurse for any cases referred to the hospital for intensive care or emergency surgery.
Our out of hours ambulatory service is covered by dedicated out of hours equine veterinary service Equicall. Equicall established in 2018 offering a dedicated out of hours service for equine ambulatory practices as part of CVS (UK) Ltd. They employ experienced equine vets assigned to BELL EQUINE (see below the main team dedicated to covering Bell Equine clients), who also have the backup of other Equicall vets on duty in neighbouring areas, who may be closer to a location, thus reducing waiting times for emergency visits.
Equicall vets covering BELL EQUINE have access to patient’s records, use of our in-house laboratory when required and full support from our whole hospital, as well as the back up of our our specialist hospital veterinary team. Any cases seen by our ambulatory vets during the day which are of a particular concern are discussed with the Equicall on-call vet during a hand over at the end of the day. Each morning full clinical notes are sent over for the patients' clinical records to be updated and a Bell Equine clinician or registered veterinary nurse (RVN) follow up each case and arrange any further investigations / reassessments if required.
They are able to offer advice and guidance, and help ascertain if a horse needs immediate treatment, or if a routine appointment can be made during working hours the following day.
Equicall Vets
Ambulatory out of hours veterinary team
Ian Bellis BVM&S Cert AVP(ESO) MRCVS
Ian qualified from Edinburgh in June 2006 and has been working with horses ever since – first in the New Forest, then Sussex and latterly in East Sussex. He passed his orthopaedic surgery certificate in 2015 and worked at the London Olympics in 2012 as part of a large team.
In 2018 he moved exclusively to out of hours work to help develop the area of a dedicated equine out of hours emergency service.
James Hopkins BVSc Cert AVP(ESO) MRCVS
James qualified in Sydney, Australia in January 2007 and subsequently worked in ambulatory practice in Australia. On returning to the UK he completed an internship at House and Jackson in Essex and worked as an ambulatory vet in East Sussex. He passed his orthopaedic surgery certificate in 2015.
James has a keen interest in providing a high quality out of hours service and moved to help run the dedicated out of hours team in 2018.
Rosemarie Abbott MA VetMB MRCVS
Rosemarie provides out of hours cover in East Sussex, where she has grown up and worked professionally for over 10 years. Through Equicall she provides out of hours support to practices in the area.
Alex Baldwin BVetMed CertAVP (EECC) MRCVS
Alex graduated from the Royal Veterinary College London in 2016. Having started her career in first opinion equine praactice, she undertook an internship at Bell Equine in 2019 and upon finishing, she joined the busy ambulatory team.
Working with the BELL ambulatory team for some years, Alex has an intimate knowledge of the area and is known by many of our clients. In 2023 she joined out of hours provider Equicall as one of the primary vets covering Bell Equine's ambulatory out of hours emergency service. Alex is interested in all aspects of equine emergency veterinary medicine, and completed her Advanced Practitioner Certificate in Equine Emergency and Critical Care in 2025.
Florence Gibbons BVMSci MRCVS
Florence graduated in 2022 from the University of Surrey and started practice in Australia where she completed an internship at Goulburn Valley Equine Hospital. She continued to work 'Down Under' in mixed practice before moving back home and joining Equicall in March 2024.
Beth Rose MRCVS
Beth graduated from University of Bristol in 2020 and has worked in equine practice since. She loves emergency work; hence the decision to join the Equicall out of hours team in 2023. Beth endeavours to be a calm and reassuring presence in the face of stressful situations.