Stephen at Superwild · 15 May 2026 · 9 min read

A vet's view on the CMA reforms — and what owners can actually do without being annoying

Most of what's written about the CMA Order is from the owner's side. This post is the other side. I've talked to a dozen UK vets — first-opinion, referral, corporate and independent — about what the reform actually means for them, and what owners can do to make use of the new rights without being the appointment they dread.

What's actually changed for vets

Quite a lot, but less than the headlines suggest. The Order's six obligations land on the practice administratively, not clinically. A summary from the vets' end of the counter:

• Written prescriptions on request, capped at £21 + £12.50 per additional. The cap is below the actual administrative cost at some practices. Several vets I spoke to said the cap is fair, but the increased volume of prescription requests isn't yet matched by changes in how their PMS (practice management system) handles them.
• Disclosure during consults. Vets must inform clients that medication is often cheaper online. Most vets I spoke to said they'd been doing this informally for years anyway; the change is the formalisation.
• Corporate ownership disclosure. Welcomed by most vets. The consolidation has happened quietly and the disclosure brings it into the open.
• Top-10 price list display. The least-loved bit of the Order. Practices view it as performative — owners can already look up prices online — and as making the dispensary look like a retail counter.
• £500 written estimate. Genuinely useful. Most practices were already doing this for major procedures; the Order makes the practice that wasn't have to.
• Standardised complaints process. Already required by RCVS. The Order tightens implementation.

What medication mark-up actually pays for

This is the part most owner-side coverage skips. The dispensary margin isn't pocketed profit — it covers real costs that don't have a separate line item on the bill. Honest accounting:

• Dispensary staffing. A registered veterinary nurse or qualified person preparing and labelling every dispensed medicine. The labour cost is non-trivial and is funded almost entirely from medication margin.
• Stock management. A typical first-opinion practice holds 400–600 SKUs. Wastage from expiry, breakage, returns and recall is built into the margin.
• Controlled-drug compliance. Schedule 3 (phenobarbital, tramadol, Pardale-V) drugs require locked storage, register entries, witnessed-destruction protocols. The administrative time is real.
• Out-of-hours dispensing capacity. The reason your vet can dispense an emergency medication at 8pm on a Sunday is that someone is on rota. That rota is partly funded by the daytime dispensary margin.
• Continuity in case of reaction. The practice deals with the consequences if a dispensed batch causes a problem, regardless of whether you bought it there or elsewhere.

The CMA's view, which I largely share, is that bundling all of these costs into the dispensary margin is the wrong way to fund them — owners can't see what they're paying for and the price feels arbitrary. The right structure is a fair, visible consult fee and a separate, transparent dispensing fee. The Order pushes the model in that direction.

How to ask without being annoying

Speaking to vets across the country, a consistent list of behaviours that make their day worse without changing the outcome — and what to do instead.

• Email, don't ambush. Asking for a written prescription at the end of a 15-minute consult slot means the vet stays late writing it. Email the practice 48 hours before your next refill is due, with the medications and doses listed.
• Bundle medications. One written prescription with three medicines on it (£21 + £12.50 + £12.50 = £46) is one administrative event. Three separate prescriptions is three. The fee structure is designed to nudge bundling — let it.
• Keep the clinical relationship at the practice. The online pharmacy doesn't know your dog. The vet does. Don't ask the pharmacy clinical questions and don't expect the practice to take responsibility for online-supplied medication's efficacy or adverse events.
• Be specific. "Galliprant 60 mg, 30 tablets, please" is helpful. "Could you write me a prescription for everything she's on?" makes the vet do the looking-up work. Read your last refill bottle.
• Don't try to negotiate the dispensary price. The vet doesn't set it and can't change it. The right response to "Could you match the online price?" is no, because the costs the dispensary margin covers don't go away. Switch supply if that's what you want, but don't put the vet in the middle of it.
• Acknowledge the vet who said yes. A "thanks, that was quick" email back after the prescription arrives takes 20 seconds and meaningfully changes how the next request feels at the other end.

When you might not want to switch

Several scenarios where buying online is the wrong call.

• A one-off short course. A 7-day antibiotic at £25 from the vet vs £15 online plus £21 prescription fee. The vet wins.
• An acutely unwell dog. If something needs to start today, take it from the vet today. Switch the next refill if it becomes a chronic prescription.
• Mid-titration of a sensitive drug. Phenobarbital, insulin, torasemide being titrated up: hold steady at the practice until you're at stable maintenance dose. Then switch.
• Controlled drugs over short windows. Schedule 3 controlled drugs (phenobarbital, tramadol, Pardale-V) have a 28-day written prescription validity. If you can't reliably get the script to a pharmacy and back to you in that window, don't bother.
• You actively value the loyalty. Some practices treat owners who buy in-clinic with a softer touch on consult fees, faster phone access, or just a warmer relationship. That has value, even if it's not on a price list. If you'd rather pay an extra £30/month for that than save it — your call, and a defensible one.

Honest summary

The CMA Order is, on balance, good for owners. It is also, on balance, fine for vets, provided practices use the moment to restructure pricing so the work they do is properly funded rather than subsidised by margin on tablets. The risk to vets is not that owners switch — it's that they switch and still expect the same level of informal clinical contact for free. The fix isn't to refuse prescriptions; it's to set consult fees that reflect the value of the work.

The risk to owners isn't that vets resent the request — almost none of them I've spoken to do — it's treating the practice as a faceless dispensary. The vet who examines your dog, monitors the bloods, takes the 9pm call when something looks wrong, and updates the prescription as the disease moves is doing the part that matters. The pack of tablets is the easy bit, and the bit the Order rightly says you can buy wherever you like.

We are not anti-vet. We are pro-owner-and-pro-vet, against the financial structure that made dispensary margin the only way to fund the practice.

Conversations with practising UK vets, March–May 2026. Names withheld at their request. Sources: CMA Final Report (March 2026), RCVS Code of Professional Conduct, BVA member submissions to the CMA investigation.