EMERGENCY pet care specialist Vets Now is creating 18 jobs with a new call centre to handle queries from distressed animal owners around the UK.

The facility, located at the Dunfermline headquarters of the business, will handle enquiries from the network of around 1,000 veterinary practices the company works with as well as its own emergency care clinics around the UK and its hospitals in Glasgow and Swindon.

Vets Now said it is making the investment in new staff to support the growth of its triage service which was launched last year, employs 53 and has handled more than 400,000 calls.

Richard Dixon, the veterinary surgeon who founded the business in 2001, believes the move will provide benefits for customers and staff.

He said: "The expansion of our free triage service has given us the ability to offer an improved service for distressed pet owners who call us.

"With the call answering service not being based in one of our emergency clinics, our staff are not occupied dealing with the emergency cases and can answer calls more quickly and spend longer on the phone offering advice and reassurance.

"Centralising our booking and escalation process has also freed up our vets and nurses in the emergency clinics to focus on the pets in their care, rather than juggling with answering the phones too."

Mr Dixon said the majority of calls the triage service has received so far have tended to come from pet owners who need reassurance about a sick animal.

The call centre staff will be trained in recognising when an animal needs to visit a clinic out of hours.

The Vets Now workers can also connect into a centralised booking system for clinics which shows emergency cases which have been allocated.

Mr Dixon added: "The service has been very well received and the new centre provides us with a dedicated facility to manage calls and grow our staff numbers as we make the service available across our clinic network.

"It is vital that pet owners get the best possible service right from the initial contact and I believe this new facility will help us in meeting our customer service objectives, whilst strengthening our position as the leading provider of emergency out-of-hours veterinary care for pets.

"Our partnership approach has been one of the key drivers in our continued growth, as an increasing number of practices realise the commercial and work/life balance benefits of working with us."

In April this year Vets Now hired former Black & Lizars boss Mark Ross to be its joint managing director. He was to share duties with Fiona Dewar, who was promoted from her role as client and people director at Vets Now.

The most recently available annual accounts for Now Group (Europe), the parent of Vets Now, show turnover of £31 million and pre-tax profit of £1.5m in the 12 months to March 31, 2014.