On 15th October, 2025 the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) released a preliminary report into its findings, after a 2 year investigation into the veterinary sector. The report can be read here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68ee3de1e7b6794c076bbe09/Summary.pdf
I personally welcomed this investigation; Millie’s Vets is a completely independent practice, owned solely by me. No investors, no shareholders, no other people with financial influence over the practice at all.
My team and I work hard every day to provide what I believe to be exceptional care for fair prices, sticking to our ethos of being fair and reasonable in all that we do.
I was saddened yesterday to find that a key feature of the CMA’s suggested remedies to their conclusion of a lack of competition will potentially drive more work, and therefore funds, from clients of independent practices like mine to the very corporate groups who are charged with reducing competition in the first place.
How?
The CMA are considering making it compulsory for all practices to issue a written prescription in certain specific circumstances (as well as capping the fee that can be charged). On face value, this may seem a positive step, but I see several issues:
– You may not be able to obtain the medication your pet needs as urgently as any of us would like, waiting for postal delivery of medications from the online pharmacy.
– Many of the online pharmacies are owned by the very same multi-national Large Veterinary Groups (LVGs), which many pet owners actively choose to move away from. IVC Evidensia own PetDrugsOnline (and Congleton Veterinary Centre, Wright&Morten, Cheshire Pet, and some 900+ other UK vet practices). CVS own Animed Direct (and 500-600 UK vet practices). Vet Partners own VetUK (and Charter Vets plus 300-400 UK vet practices.)
– Your pet’s prescription also contains your data; I am not comfortable releasing your data to the. LVGs and the online pharmacies they own.
– As a business, in the last financial year, Millie’s Vets made slightly less than 10% profit. So, from a £120 client bill, once we paid the £20 VATax, there was less than £10 profit once all our bills were paid. If we now lose our drug sales, our books will still have to balance at year-end. Therefore it is likely that the CMA’s proposals will actually INCREASE the cost of veterinary care as we will have to increase our charges in order to pay the high costs of running a well-equipped modern vet practice. I believe the CMA’s proposals will also REDUCE competition.
I work hard, continuously, behind the scenes to ensure that we source the best, most suitable medications for the best possible price, so that we can provide care at sensible prices. Sadly the drug-supply chain is not a level playing field. Vet practices are legally only allowed to purchase our drugs from one of 3 wholesalers (MWI, NVS or Covetrus). Unusually we have an account with each and regularly compare prices. Owing to the comparative size of our respective businesses, the LVGs get significant discounts from the suppliers and drug companies, meaning they pay much less for their drugs than independent practices like us. Yet, I hear repeatedly from new clients that our costs are often lower than our local, corporate competitors. In fact, one of yesterday’s headlines from the BBC was that the CMA found that independent practices were, on average, 16.6% cheaper than the LVGs. I estimate that since opening, our pricing structure, compared to that our local corporate competitors, has left around £350,000.00 in the pockets of our local community, and I am proud that we can provide the level of care that we do at the prices we are currently able.
Additionally, any profit that is made by an independent practice like us will also stay in the local community, instead of being siphoned off to overseas venture capitalists, who are often the faceless investors behind the LVGs.
The CMA are also considering making practices
– Publish price-lists online for common procedures.
– Provide written estimates for procedures over £500
– Provide itemised bills when requested.
– Provide data to allow pet-owners to easily compare prices.
The first 3 above are a routine offering at Millie’s Vets, and have been since the day we opened; that just seemed to be the fair and reasonable thing to do. We will shortly be publishing our own price comparison data and will of course contribute our pricing data to any CMA mechanism in future.
On behalf of the entire Millie’s Vets team, I would like to thank you for your continued support; we hope to continue working with our local community for many years to come.
If you would like to respond to the CMAs draft outcomes document, you can do so before the 12th November, here: https://connect.cma.gov.uk/vets-provisional-decision?tool=survey_tool&tool_id=submit-your-response#tool_tab