The school's teaching, treatment and research facilities are on the main campus and at Leahurst on the Wirral Peninsula, approximately 12 miles outside Liverpool.
The emerging science of veterinary medicine was of particular relevance both to the busy port city itself, which depended upon heavy horses to drive its docks and associated industry, and to the economy of the surrounding countryside, which at the time boasted the highest stocking density of cattle in the UK.
Initially, there was considerable resistance to the idea of a vet school operating within the confines of a civic University, as this seemingly endorsed a 'one-portal' entry system to the profession, thereby cementing the authority of the RCVS and its diploma.
Two years later, the school was the first in the UK to receive an Order in Council allowing those obtaining the BVSc qualification to practice veterinary medicine.
The hospital has particular expertise in the areas of gastroenterology, oncology, orthopaedics and neurology and is fully equipped to undertake laparoscopic investigations of the equine abdomen (e.g. for recurrent or chronic colic) and to perform operative procedures via laparoscopy, e.g.