CMA requirements for veterinary practices: what needs to change on your website and printed materials before March 2027?
If you run an independent veterinary practice, the CMA’s new Veterinary Services Market Investigation Order means you may need to make significant changes to the information you give pet owners online and in practice. For small veterinary businesses with 14 or fewer practices, many of the new requirements take effect from 23 March 2027. These include requirements covering prices, health plans, practice information, cremation options and complaints procedures.
VetSuccess can help you review your existing website and client materials against the CMA’s published requirements, identify what needs attention, and create or update the webpages and printed materials you need. If you use the VetSuccess platform to manage your health plan payments, you’ll also receive 1/3 off our marketing design services.
What do veterinary practices need to do to meet the new CMA requirements?
Following its investigation into veterinary services for household pets, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published its legally binding Veterinary Services Market Investigation Order in September 2026.
For full details of what is required, please review the CMA guidance on gov.uk here.
The aim is to make it easier for pet owners to understand who provides their veterinary care, compare prices and services, understand what they’re paying for and make informed choices.
For independent practices, that means considerably more information needs to be readily available to clients.
If you’re a small veterinary business with 14 or fewer practices, many of the requirements that will affect your website and client-facing materials come into force from 23 March 2027.
The work required will vary from practice to practice. However, some of the main areas to consider are:
1. Your veterinary price list
Practices will need to publish a price list on their website covering the relevant services specified by the CMA.
The CMA’s Schedule 1 contains 36 services, although you don’t need to list services your practice doesn’t offer. Prices need to represent the typical price a pet owner would pay for a standard case with minimal complexity or complications.
The price list also needs to be available in your practice.
This isn’t simply a case of adding a handful of popular prices to your existing fees page. The CMA has specified what needs to be included and how some of that information should be presented.
How VetSuccess can help:
We can take the information you provide, create or update the appropriate price section of your website and design corresponding in-practice materials where required.
2. Flea, tick and worming treatment prices
There are separate requirements relating to parasiticides.
Practices will need to publish prices for their most commonly sold flea, tick and worming products, together with the other information specified by the CMA, including relevant links to the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD). The price list must be clearly identifiable on your website and easily accessible. You must also make the same information available in practices.
How VetSuccess can help:
We can create a clear, easy-to-maintain webpage that presents the required information without making your website feel like a spreadsheet.
3. Health plan information
If your practice offers a pet health plan, you’ll need to provide considerably more information about what clients receive for their money.
This includes information such as:
- what’s included in the plan
- how often included services can be used
- the period over which they’re available
- the total monthly and annual price
- standalone prices for included services
- cancellation terms
There are additional requirements if your plan includes flea, tick or worming treatments, and further requirements if you make claims about the money clients could save by joining.
That means existing health plan webpages and leaflets may need more than a few wording changes.
How VetSuccess can help:
Health plans are one of our specialist areas. We can redesign your health plan webpage and printed literature around the information your practice needs to communicate, while keeping it attractive, understandable and focused on the benefits owners care about.
If your practice already uses the VetSuccess health plan platform, you can also receive 1/3 off our marketing design services.
4. Information about your practice and out-of-hours care
The Order also introduces requirements around the information practices make available about their services.
Depending on your practice, this can include information about staff qualifications and relevant accreditations, as well as more detailed information about your out-of-hours arrangements.
If you outsource your out-of-hours care, for example, the published information needs to cover who provides it, where the service is provided, contact details, when it is available and the nature of the service.
How VetSuccess can help:
We can review how this information currently appears across your website and help restructure it so important information is easy for pet owners to find without overwhelming your main marketing messages.
5. Cremation and end-of-life information
The new requirements also cover how practices communicate cremation options and prices.
Practices will need to make pet owners aware of the available options, publish relevant information on their websites and provide clear prices for the individual and communal cremation services they offer.
This is an area where presentation matters particularly. Information needs to be clear and accessible while still being communicated with the sensitivity owners expect at an incredibly difficult time.
How VetSuccess can help:
We can create or update end-of-life webpages, price information, consent materials and printed literature with both the published requirements and the client experience in mind.
6. Your complaints procedure
From March 2027, small veterinary businesses must have and follow a written in-house complaints process meeting the requirements set out in the Order.
Each practice must also publish its complaints process on its website. Further information about routes to redress will also need to be displayed online and prominently within practice.
How VetSuccess can help:
Once your practice has confirmed its complaints policy and processes, we can make sure the appropriate client-facing information has a clear home on your website and create the relevant in-practice materials.
It’s not just about adding more words to your website
One potential consequence of the changes is a website that technically contains a lot more information but becomes much harder for clients to use.
That's something we're keen to avoid.
Your website still needs to reassure a worried pet owner, explain why they should choose your practice, make it easy to register or book, and communicate what makes your team special.
So rather than simply bolting new information onto existing pages, this is a good opportunity to consider where it belongs, how clients will find it and how it fits into the overall client journey.
At VetSuccess, we work exclusively in the veterinary and pet-owner sector. Our team provides website design and development, print and digital design, copywriting, SEO, health plan marketing and wider practice marketing support.
That means we can look at the changes through two lenses: what the CMA's published requirements say needs to be communicated, and how to communicate that information clearly to pet owners.
Don’t know where to start? We can review what you already have
You don’t necessarily need a new website.
We can start by reviewing your existing website and relevant marketing materials against the CMA’s published requirements and identifying the areas that appear to need attention.
From there, we can agree what you’d like us to tackle. That could mean a few changes to existing pages, or a larger project covering areas such as:
- website price lists
- parasiticide pricing information
- health plan pages
- health plan leaflets and other printed materials
- practice and out-of-hours information
- end-of-life and cremation information
- complaints information
- new webpages or a wider website redesign
Need VetSuccess to review where you stand?
We’ll work from the information supplied and approved by your practice and the requirements published by the CMA. Our role is to help you turn that information into clear, accessible, professionally presented client communications, rather than provide legal or regulatory advice.
We can also help you prepare for the RCVS information requirements
The changes don't end with your own website.
Under Article 10 of the Order, veterinary businesses will later be required to submit specified information to the RCVS for publication through its Find a Vet service. This will include information relating to areas such as practice ownership, services, prices and pet care plans, together with public URLs showing where the relevant information has been published on your website.
We can structure your website with this in mind and help collate the relevant information and links, giving you a clear record to work from when the RCVS submission is required.
Get it sorted before the March deadline
If your practice is already busy, finding time to interpret new requirements, work out what's missing, rewrite webpages, prepare price information and redesign printed literature is unlikely to be high on anyone's wish list.
That's where we can take much of the workload away.
Give us access to your current website and materials and we'll review what you have, highlight the areas that may need updating against the CMA's published requirements, agree the work with you and then get on with creating it.
For small veterinary businesses, many of the relevant requirements take effect from 23 March 2027. Starting now means there's time to make the changes properly rather than treating them as a last-minute exercise.
And if you use the VetSuccess platform to manage your health plan payments, you'll receive 1/3 off our marketing design services.
Want us to take a look at your practice?
Ask us for a CMA website and marketing materials review.
We'll look at your current website and client-facing materials against the CMA's published requirements and show you where we can help, from individual page updates and health plan leaflets to a wider website refresh.
