Happy to say Alfie's foot is now fine. I was obviously worrying about nothing! There's no mark on it anymore.
Yes I've been quite lucky so far as his previous vet was about 45-60 mins drive away (traffic depending!). Most of the vets I'm looking at currently are at least an hour away- probably 1.5-2 hours away, depending who I end up choosing. One of them use to (pre-covid) have a slot at another vet surgery which was a lot closer to home (30 mins) than their main base. But unfortunately I'll have to go to the one that's further away (if I choose them) for now. But I am lucky to have a few options which are reasonably close by!