Who owns your vet practice and how much do they charge? A couple of decades ago these were not questions that were of much concern as the vast majority of practices were privately owned and charged broadly similar amounts for treatments. In the intervening years, however, private vet practices have been bought up by investors, independent vets have become increasingly rare and prices have skyrocketed. That is why the Alliance supported and has contributed to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation into the veterinary sector. This may not sound a thrilling process, and it sometimes seems to progress with glacial slowness, but its results make reform of the sector inevitable.

The CMA found that veterinary prices have risen by 63% in seven years which is way above the rate of inflation. The investigation also found that veterinary businesses are charging pet owners double the price of online pharmacies for commonly prescribed medicines which means that pet owners could be paying hundreds of pounds more than they need to each year. It also concluded that pet care plans do not provide value for money for some pet owners. Perhaps the killer statistic, however, was the CMA’s finding that practices owned by large vet groups charge 16.6% more on average than independent vets.

The CMA's proposals include making practices publish price lists so pet owners can see costs up front and shop around for the best deal, making vets reveal if they are part of a large group, capping prescription fees and banning bonuses on offering specific treatments. In our response to the CMA we particularly raised concerns about this last point and the potential for veterinary employees to propose potentially unnecessary treatments where bonuses are offered and owners have a close emotional attachment to their pet. Especially at the end of life there is at least anecdotal evidence that pets are being kept alive in situations which might not be best for their welfare. This is an extremely sensitive area and we appreciate the CMA cannot investigate matters of clinical judgement, but its report did mirror our concerns. Our full response to the original consultation can be found here.

The Alliance is fully supportive of the proposals for reform of the sector. However, we believe that the CMA’s findings reflect wider issues. For instance, equine veterinary practices face similar changes and many horses are anyway kept as pets. We also believe that there should be further investigation of the pet insurance market and the impact it has had in driving up veterinary costs. Now that the lid has been lifted on the changing face of veterinary provision there will hopefully be more scrutiny of all aspects of the industry.

As the CMA has pointed out, there is currently regulation of individual vets but no regulation of the businesses that own the majority of the practices in the country. This clearly has to change.