OPINION: We love our dog but the vet bills are mounting - how can we get a better deal?

Originally published in The i Paper 08 June 2025. Permission to publish all opinion pieces authored by Rocio Concha, sought and granted on 3 July 2025.

Trips to the vet can be testing affairs. What if the ‘routine check-up’ turns into something more worrying as an underlying condition is found? What happens if the injury your furry friend has suffered is more severe than first thought? 

But perhaps the most nerve-wracking experience of all is the wait for the bill. When Which? recently surveyed over 1,000 pet owners who have experienced some kind of problem with their vet or vet practice in the past two years, pricing was the most common issue experienced. Just over half of them said the price of care was excessive, while more than a quarter said the price was higher than they thought it would be. 

“The health of my pet is priceless!” I can already hear some of you cry. And of course many pet owners will go to great lengths financially to keep their animals, many of whom are considered integral members of the family, alive and well. 

Yet our survey found that another common issue was the quality of care. There is a big difference between paying large sums of money in veterinary care in the knowledge that your pet will come out the other side stronger, and shelling out for care which may put them back on the treatment table shortly after the visit. Almost a quarter of pet owners who’d had a problem said it was about the quality of care, while a similar number bemoaned the customer service they received. Concerningly, one in 10 said they were charged the wrong price for treatment and the vet or vet practice made a mistake with the care. 

Rubbing salt into the wounds is the difficulty pet owners face when making a complaint. The first port of call is to complain to the vet practice itself, which can make the process awkward at best. Many of the pet owners in our survey who had been put off from making a claim said they did not think they would be successful (38%), did not want to fall out with their vet (33%) or did not know how to complain in the first place (16%).

Decide to take on the complaints obstacle course, then, and Crufts starts to look like a picnic. The Vet Client Mediation Service only requires vets to participate voluntarily, while the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons sets the bar of investigating and progressing a complaint extremely high. Cases must effectively be proven beyond reasonable doubt that vets have acted unfairly, rather than taking a view on the balance of probabilities, as regulators for doctors and dentists do. 

The upshot? Pet owners feel dismissed and that the very process they are trying to navigate is biased in favour of the professionals from the beginning. Court is rarely a viable option, due to the associated costs coupled with the perceived unlikelihood of success.

Persistent issues in the veterinary industry were enough to force the regulator to act. The Competition and Markets Authority, the watchdog in charge of ensuring markets work fairly, is concerned that pet owners are getting a rough deal. 

The CMA has previously raised concerns about competition because the number of independent vet practices has reduced as large corporate groups have bought them out. The regulator is also concerned that the regulation of vets is outdated. The Veterinary Surgeons Act harks back to the 1960s - a time when most vet practices were independent and not part of big businesses that own the majority of practices today.

Which? supports the CMA’s proposed remedies to improve the system. That means making pricing clear and telling owners where they can find medication most cheaply. It also means ensuring vets are clearly signposting internal complaints procedures and that a veterinary ombudsman is established to provide a comprehensive and mandatory alternative dispute resolution scheme for when issues cannot be resolved between the practice and the owner.