25 Apr 2024
Around one in five respondents said their dealings with pet owners had been “more negative” following the release of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) report last month.
Allister Webb
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Image: © nicoletaionescu / Adobe Stock
A new BVA survey has indicated a deterioration in veterinary teams’ interactions with clients since the publication of a review into companion animal services.
Around one in five respondents said their dealings with pet owners had been “more negative” following the release of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) report last month.
The findings were highlighted amid new criticism of the authority’s handling of the process in a joint consultation submission by the BVA, the BSAVA, the BVNA, SPVS and the Veterinary Management Group.
BVA president Anna Judson said the document “ensures a strong veterinary voice continues to be heard in this ongoing investigation.”
Dr Judson added: “Since the CMA launched its initial review, we know that vet teams in practice have faced an increase in abusive behaviour from clients. We encourage practices to use our #RespectYourVetTeam resources to help protect their teams from unacceptable behaviour.”
The groups have also urged the CMA to be “mindful of language that might misrepresent the motivations and values of individual veterinary professionals”.
A total of 346 members responded to the BVA survey, which was included in the 10-page document published on 11 April, after consultations on the CMA’s plan to hold a full market investigation ended.
Although most respondents (70%) said their interactions had been “about the same” since the review as they were before, 22% said they had been more negative, compared to only 2% that reported more positive contacts.
BVNA president Lyndsay Hughes said: “We remain concerned that since the launch of the CMA review, veterinary teams have been faced with unacceptable and abusive client behaviour. The BVNA strongly condemns this abuse, whether in-person or online.”
But the groups have welcomed the CMA’s previous commitment to being “mindful” of the impact that its process might have on individual veterinary staff, along with its acknowledgement that the abuse of practice teams was an ongoing problem.
The joint submission also indicated agreement with several transparency points around service pricing and practice ownership.
But it argued that voluntary measures could be implemented to address the ownership issue and warned that the development of price lists, while potentially enabling discussions around contextualised care, could potentially prevent some clients from discussing alternative treatment options.
It also cautioned against forcing practices to provide information on measures of treatment quality and outcomes, arguing that such an approach risked undermining vets and “would not meaningfully support consumer choice”.
The associations were further said to be “extremely disappointed” by the CMA report’s suggestion that professionals could use owners’ distress over an unwell pet as a “strategy” to promote more expensive treatments, pointing out such behaviour “would not be in line” with the RCVS Code of Conduct.
It also criticised the comment that the need to pay another consultation fee when seeking a second opinion could be a barrier to alternative treatment, arguing it was “not fair or reasonable to expect a veterinary professional providing a second opinion to provide their professional services free of charge”.
The CMA has said it is considering all submissions made during the consultation period before deciding whether to proceed with a full market investigation, though it has not indicated when a decision is likely to be announced.
