Two years of investigation into a market where six groups own over 60% of practices ended without a single forced sale. The final report of 24 March 2026 rejected divestments, an ownership cap, a general price control and a profit cap. What it chose instead is more useful to an independent practice than any of them.
Article · 22 June 2026
If you were expecting the CMA to unwind the consolidation of the veterinary market, it did not. Paragraphs 134 to 141 of the final report of 24 March 2026 record a series of decisions against the interventions most commonly assumed, and they are worth reading before anyone tells you the corporate groups are about to be broken up. They are not.
What the CMA chose instead is less dramatic and, for a well-run independent practice, considerably more useful. The short version: it decided not to change who owns the market, and instead to make ownership, prices and complaints visible to the person paying the bill.
The report states that the CMA is not pursuing divestments of businesses or parts of businesses. That is a decision about the whole structure of the market. Six large groups own, wholly or in part, over 60% of UK veterinary practices, up from 10% in 2013, and none of them will be required to sell a practice as a result of this investigation.
The distinction to hold onto is between a market investigation and a merger review. This investigation created no divestment obligation. Merger control is a separate regime and it has not gone anywhere — more on that below.
The CMA considered limiting how much of the market the large groups may own, and concluded that it would be neither effective nor proportionate to reduce or cap the level of ownership of practices by large veterinary groups. So there is no ceiling, no ratchet and no requirement to keep a proportion of the market in independent hands.
Read alongside the structural position — non-vets have been able to own a UK veterinary practice since 1999, and the RCVS has no statutory power to regulate the businesses vets work in — this leaves the ownership question exactly where it was. The acquirers can keep acquiring.
There is one price control in the package and it is narrow: a maximum fee for providing a written prescription. Beyond that, the CMA decided against a general price control. Nothing will tell a practice what to charge for a consultation, a vaccination, a dental scale or an operation.
It also decided against a profit cap, on the basis that measures to cap the profitability of businesses would be disproportionate. That is notable given what the same report found on profitability: four of the six groups — CVS, IVC, Pets at Home and VetPartners — made profits which materially exceeded the cost of capital over a sustained period, against a CMA pre-tax cost of capital range of 7.5% to 10.5% a year with a mid-point of 9.0%. The CMA found the returns, said so, and declined to cap them.
The vertically integrated parts of the groups also stay where they are. There is no forced divestment of online pharmacies, referral centres, crematoria or laboratories. Five of the six groups own referral-only centres, and two of them — CVS and IVC — own dedicated out-of-hours businesses. All of that structure survives the investigation intact.
Four things, and they are all about information rather than ownership.
Four separate publication duties in the draft Order: ownership information on signage, premises, websites and communications; practice information including the out-of-hours provider and staff qualifications; a comprehensive standard price list priced by weight band; and a parasiticide price list with a link to the VMD Register of Online Retailers. Plus pet care plan disclosure down to the standalone price of each service included and the savings methodology, cremation options with a basic communal option offered and priced, written estimates where cost is reasonably likely to be £500 or more including VAT, and itemised bills.
A requirement to have policies ensuring that veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses can act in accordance with the RCVS Codes of Professional Conduct. In a market where the CMA had heard concerns about commercial pressure on clinical decisions, this is a governance remedy aimed squarely at owners rather than at clinicians.
An in-house complaint process with written acknowledgement in five working days, a full response within eight weeks, the process published and the RCVS decision tree displayed. A complaint log. And a duty to mediate in good faith once the in-house process is exhausted, with the RCVS contracting an alternative dispute resolution provider, anticipated to be the Veterinary Client Mediation Service.
The CMA's third core finding was that the system of regulation of vets is outdated and wholly unfit for purpose, including that it applies only to veterinary professionals and not to the businesses in which they work. It recommended statutory regulation of veterinary businesses. Paragraph 133 notes that Defra's reform of the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 appears to be taking that recommendation forward. Defra's consultation ran from 28 January to 25 March 2026 and drew 6,219 responses. The summary of responses has not been published and nothing is in force.
This is the part worth sitting with, because the remedy that looks weakest on paper is the one that does the most for a small practice.
Start with three verified findings. Between January 2023 and July 2024 average prices at the practices owned by Medivet, IVC, CVS, VetPartners and Linnaeus were together 18.3% higher than at independent practices for consultations and treatments. Only a minority of those groups' customers knew their practice was part of a group — 22% at IVC and 33% at CVS. And where pet owners do care about ownership, more than two thirds prefer an independent practice.
Put an illustrative basket on the price gap. A set of consultations and treatments costing £100 at an independent would, on the CMA's finding, average £118.30 across those five groups' practices — because £100 x 1.183 = £118.30. That gap exists today. What does not exist today is any easy way for a client to see it, or to know which category their own practice falls into. The CMA's own baseline: of the practice websites it reviewed, 84% carried no pricing information at all, which puts the practices that do publish in the remaining 16%.
A divestment remedy would have moved a few hundred practices between owners. The transparency remedies instead hand an independent practice three things it currently has to assert without evidence: a published price it can be compared on, a disclosed ownership status in a market where two thirds of the people who care prefer what it already is, and a complaints record. The final report also found net satisfaction on value for money at 26% for large-group customers against 47% at independents. Making that comparison visible is not a modest remedy for a good independent practice. It is the best one available.
The catch is symmetrical. Transparency rewards a practice whose prices and processes stand up to being read. It is unkind to one whose price list has never been reviewed, whose pet care plan cannot be broken into components with a defensible savings calculation, or whose complaint handling lives in one person's inbox.
Merger control. The final report notes at paragraph 136 that previous CMA merger investigations in the veterinary sector have led to divestments of first opinion practices to address competition concerns, and that the CMA will continue actively monitoring merger activity in the sector, taking account of the analysis in this investigation. A footnote adds that it may use share of full-time-equivalent vets in specific local areas, as it has in previous veterinary merger cases.
UK merger notification remains voluntary, and this investigation created no new filing obligation. The statutory thresholds, as amended with effect from 1 January 2025, are UK turnover of the target exceeding £100 million, or the creation or enhancement of a 25% share of supply in the UK or a substantial part of it, with a £10 million turnover floor on the share-of-supply route. A separate acquirer-focused threshold applies where the acquirer holds a 33% share of supply and has UK turnover of £350 million or more.
The honest position for a practice selling into a local area a group already dominates is therefore call-in risk on a voluntary regime, with the CMA having said in terms that it is watching — not a new obligation to file.
Because the CMA declined to change ownership, the structural facts underneath the market are unchanged. Non-vets have been able to own a UK veterinary practice since 1999. The RCVS has no statutory power to regulate practices and regulates individual veterinary surgeons and veterinary nurses only. The Practice Standards Scheme is a voluntary accreditation. The one compulsory registration is of premises that store or supply medicines, at £38 per premises a year in England and Wales, renewing 1 April, every branch separately.
Stop waiting for the market to be rearranged and start using the disclosure. If a client is going to be able to see your prices, your ownership and your complaints process, those three things are now marketing as well as compliance — and they favour the independent practice that gets them right first.
The remedy-by-remedy detail is in our CMA remedies guide, and the pricing side is in the practice pricing guide. If you want the published-price question worked through on your own numbers, that is CMA compliance and pricing. The ownership numbers behind all of this are set out in six groups own over 60% of UK practices, and the reason no compliance date appears above is in the Order has not been made yet.
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Not as a result of this investigation. The final report of 24 March 2026 states that the CMA is not pursuing divestments of businesses or parts of businesses, and it separately declined to force the divestment of online pharmacies, referral centres, crematoria or laboratories. Merger control is a different regime and remains live: the report notes that previous CMA merger investigations in the sector have led to divestments of first opinion practices, and that the CMA will keep monitoring merger activity, potentially using share of full-time-equivalent vets in specific local areas. But nothing in the market investigation itself requires a sale.
No. It considered doing so and concluded that it would be neither effective nor proportionate to reduce or cap the level of practice ownership by large veterinary groups. There is therefore no ceiling on consolidation, no requirement to keep a share of the market independent, and no restriction on further acquisitions beyond ordinary merger control. That sits on top of the underlying position that there is no ownership restriction on a UK veterinary practice at all: non-vets have been able to own one since 1999, and the RCVS has no statutory power to regulate the businesses vets work in.
Only for written prescriptions. The final report records a decision against a general price control, with the written prescription fee as the sole exception, and a separate decision against a profit cap on the basis that capping business profitability would be disproportionate. So consultation fees, vaccination prices, diagnostics and operations are not being set or limited. What the remedies do instead is require those prices to be published in comparable form, in defined weight bands, alongside parasiticide prices, pet care plan component prices, cremation prices and ownership information.
More than a divestment would have. The report found average prices at the five named groups' practices were 18.3% higher than at independents for consultations and treatments between January 2023 and July 2024, that only 22% of IVC customers and 33% of CVS customers knew their practice was part of a group, and that more than two thirds of owners who care about ownership prefer an independent. Net satisfaction on value for money was 26% for large-group customers against 47% at independents. The transparency remedies make all of that visible to clients for the first time.
Statutory regulation of veterinary businesses. Its third core finding was that the system of regulation is outdated and wholly unfit for purpose, including that it applies only to veterinary professionals and not to the businesses in which they work. A recommendation is not a remedy and binds nobody. Defra's consultation on reforming the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 ran from 28 January to 25 March 2026, drew 6,219 responses, and proposes a licence to practise plus licensing of veterinary businesses. The summary of responses has not been published and nothing is in force.
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