Vet recommendations (North London)

Even though I have 10 weeks or so to go before my new arrivals, the "shopping list" is taking up too much of my mind.

One thing on the list is to find a new and long term vet. With my moggies I started with a local vet (a hundred yards away) but got the feeling he was more of a "dog" vet and so moved onto the local Medivet in Finchley. While the staff and care were fine I always felt like I was being ripped off - no pricelists (as actually required by some law or another for at least medicines), too many queries about line items etc. I recall a programme on TV about them as a chain which I did not watch, but the gist of it was they were in it for the money.

My housemate recommends a cat specialist vets near Camden that her family has used for years but that might be far away and impossible to park nearby.

Can anyone recommend a MC friendly, knowledgeable and honest vet somewhere in North London ? Anywhere from Harrow in the West through to Southgate or so in the East. I drive, so distance is not a problem - except in emergencies possibly.

My advise is to look for an stand alone vet as I am not a fan of CVS, MediVet et all. I used to use a local vet who then became part of one of the corporates and you never saw the same vet twice as the turnover seems high. The final straw was when my dog of the time had prostate problems and the tardak they have given him to tide him over untill his castration had worn off on the Saturday and I called the surgery at ten to twelve to be told I would have to take him to the out of hours service at an inital fee of £96.00 to be seen. They were operating on him on the Monday morning. I could understand it if it was night time and they were not in the middle of his treatment but I thought it was wrong(we had used the practice for many years before they became part of the group).

I called another practice in the area who were indiependant with four practices who told me to bring him right in to one whos open surgery was at two (they run these at daiffrent times throughout both sat and sun great if you work and need worrmers or jabs!)

You see the same vet nearly everytime and the nurses seem to stay too.

I would never go back as the service is fantastic.