Petition: Make Veterinary Care Affordable and Fair for Pet Owners

To the UK Government and Parliament

We call on the Government to take urgent action to make veterinary care affordable, transparent and accessible to everyone who owns a pet.

Veterinary treatment has become unaffordable for many ordinary families. Pet owners are increasingly being faced with bills running into hundreds or even thousands of pounds for essential treatment, sometimes with little warning and limited ability to compare prices or understand what they are being charged for.

No loving pet owner should have to face the heartbreaking choice between paying an unaffordable bill and allowing their animal to suffer.

We believe veterinary care should remain a professional service, but it must also be subject to fair and effective regulation that protects both animals and the people responsible for them.

We call on the Government to:

Introduce greater regulation of veterinary fees, particularly for essential and emergency treatment.
Require vets to provide clear, upfront and itemised estimates before treatment wherever reasonably possible.
Prevent excessive mark-ups on medicines, diagnostic tests and other essential treatments.
Introduce affordable payment plans for necessary veterinary treatment.
Establish an independent Veterinary Ombudsman with meaningful powers to investigate complaints about pricing, treatment costs and transparency.
Ensure pet owners are clearly informed of all reasonable treatment options, including lower-cost alternatives where clinically appropriate.
Consider removing or reducing VAT on essential veterinary treatment.
Establish financial assistance for pet owners facing unavoidable emergency veterinary bills who cannot afford treatment.
Require veterinary practices to make their standard prices publicly available in a clear and comparable format.
Ensure that commercial ownership of veterinary practices does not result in excessive charges being imposed on pet owners.
Additional help for people receiving benefits

We also call on the Government to introduce a Veterinary Care Support Scheme for people on means-tested benefits or with very low household incomes.

This should include:

Financial assistance towards essential and emergency veterinary treatment.
A subsidised veterinary service or voucher scheme for eligible households.
Help towards the cost of essential medicines, prescriptions, vaccinations and preventative healthcare.
Affordable payment plans with no excessive interest or additional charges.
Clear eligibility rules so that people receiving benefits know where they can get help.
Support that allows people to keep their beloved pets rather than being forced to surrender them because they cannot afford veterinary bills.
Emergency funding for urgent treatment where delaying care could cause unnecessary suffering or put an animal’s life at risk.
People who receive benefits should not be automatically expected to choose between feeding their family, paying household bills and saving their pet’s life.

We are not asking veterinary professionals to work for free. We recognise the cost of providing high-quality veterinary care and the skill and dedication of veterinary staff.

We are asking for fairness, transparency and affordability.

Pets are family members. Their owners deserve to know that when their animal becomes ill or is injured, they will not be placed in an impossible financial situation simply because they want to save their pet’s life.

We urge the Government to act now to protect animal welfare and ensure that no pet suffers, or is unnecessarily surrendered, simply because its owner cannot afford a veterinary bill of hundreds or thousands of pounds.