Some of you may remember my blog from last weekend where I detailed what happened with my beloved dog Poppy when my husband and I took her to the out of hours emergency vets, Vets Now Worcester, when she was ill and our usual vets, The Stocks Veterinary Centre, was closed. I’m very pleased to report that Poppy is much better and fully recovered after her ordeal, and I am awaiting the outcome of a complaint I sent to Vets Now Worcester about her being given an injection of buprenorphine without us being given the full facts about possible side effects and reactions.

In the meantime, I have started to research and look into why the cost of veterinary care is so high in the UK generally, and it appears that this is down to many veterinary practices being acquired by large corporates. With the last couple of years or so has seen an unprecedented cost of living crisis, I appreciate that prices will have had to rise a bit to cover costs, especially energy costs of electricity and gas. However, the cost of veterinary care has seen an alarming rise, especially during the cost-of-living crisis, which is becoming unacceptable, so much so that the UK government has launched an investigation via the Competition and Markets Authority into the veterinary care market.

My Experiences of Using Vets Now Worcester for Out of Hours and Emergency Care for Poppy

The day after my first blog went live, I was contacted via email by Dr David Reader, who is a Senior Lecturer in Competition Law at the University of Glasgow’s School of Law. He had found my blog on LinkedIn and reached out to me because his research partner Dr Scott Summers had a similar bad experience with an out of hours vet with one of his dachshunds. They have published a thought leadership piece entitled Pawsing For Thought Vet Acquisitions that looks at how large corporate groups – particularly, private equity firms – are engaging in roll-up acquisition strategies. This in turn is pushing up the prices of veterinary care massively, and reducing competition in certain areas. Where I live in Worcester the only emergency/out of hours vet is Vets Now Worcester, so whenever Poppy is ill when The Stocks Veterinary Centre is closed, my husband and I have no choice but to take her to Vets Now Worcester.

The first time we took her to Vets Now was in September 2020. It was a Friday, and she was as right as rain – she ate her food with no problems, went for a walk, but by teatime she seemed to be very uncomfortable. We got her in at our vets just before they closed, where she was examined and given some pain relief. But by late evening the next day, the pain killer had obviously worn off and we were back to square one, so we had to take her to Vets Now.

They were unsure as to what was going on, so they decided to keep her in for observation. By lunchtime the next day they called us to say she was much worse, and they suspected something neurological. That being the case, we had to take her to The Willows in Solihull which was a more specialist centre to investigate what was going on with her. We rushed over to Vets Now and she couldn’t even stand, they brought her out using a belly band and not only that, but she had been to toilet (both) and was covered in it. They hadn’t cleaned her up or looked after her properly; Poppy is a very clean dog, if she goes for a wee on the pavement and it runs down, she will move to get out of the way of it quickly, so for her to be in that kind of state was beyond unacceptable and extremely distressing for her. The cost of her being in Vets Now that weekend was over £1500.

When we got to The Willows someone had to come outside and get her as it was during the pandemic, they took her in but we weren’t allowed to go with her because of the pandemic restrictions, my heart was in my throat as at that time I had no idea if I would ever see her again, I was beside myself. A scan revealed that she had a burst disc in her back; luckily, she avoided surgery, and it was a long haul, but she recovered on her own with a lot of strict crate rest and TLC from us. Poppy spent a week at The Willows and the cost was just under £10,000 – all covered by her insurance policy with More Than.

We weren’t happy then with Vets Now but I didn’t put a complaint in at the time (although I wish I had), then we had to consult Vets Now a further 2 – 3 times since February 2022 when Poppy was ill. At that time, Poppy was diagnosed with endocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI), she has to have enzymes mixed into her food every day as without them she can’t digest her food. If she is ill with vomiting or an upset stomach, we must get her into the vets for treatment as soon as we can, we can’t leave her to get better on her own or give her chicken and rice because of her underlying EPI. It was during an episode of her being ill with vomiting and an upset stomach that led us to taking her to Vets Now Worcester on Friday 5 July; she needed an anti-sickness injection and antibiotics to ward off SIBO, which is a complication of her underlying EPI when she is ill, but instead on top of this she was given an injection of buprenorphine that she reacted to very badly. This time however I did put a complaint into Vets Now Worcester, which I am awaiting a response from them on.

Pawsing For Thought: Greed Over Need in the Veterinary Care Industry Today

In my last blog I posed the question – is there now more greed over need in the veterinary care industry today? Dr David Reader and Dr Scott Summers’s initial research in this area certainly seems to suggest so. And I’m not the only one, when I posted on my Facebook page about what happened with Poppy last weekend and the costs involved, many of my Facebook friends shared similar experiences with lots saying they were very unhappy with the quality of care administered by Vets Now Worcester along with the eye watering costs of seeing an emergency out of hours vet. Vets Now Worcester’s consultation fee just to walk through the door to be seen is £320.00. Add on to that the cost of any treatment, blood tests and medicine/medication, and just one visit there alone can run into hundreds if not thousands of pounds – Poppy’s visit there last weekend cost £556.68, plus it was a further £290.00 for Poppy to be admitted to our own vets when they opened last Saturday morning for IV fluid treatment to flush the buprenorphine injection out of her system.

Both Dr David Reader and Dr Scott Summer are concerned about the impact of corporate ownership and, particularly, the strategy of corporates and private equity firms to take control of all the veterinary practices (and related services) in a local region. They have noted that both The Stocks Veterinary Centre and our emergency out-of-hours centre Vets Now Worcester are both owned by IVC Evidensia, which they say is a common sign that the corporate firm has ‘rolled-up’ the local market. Yet the quality of veterinary care provided couldn’t be more different – The Stocks Veterinary Centre and Poppy’s vet Zoe Hart has always been beyond exemplary, while Vets Now Worcester has been the complete opposite – substandard care for a ridiculous amount of money.

I’ve yet to research if other veterinary centres in Worcester are also owned by IVC Evidensia, but once a roll-up has occurred, prices can increase. This is what the Competition and Markets Authority is most interested in, although Dr David Reader and Dr Scott Summer are both keen to determine whether the quality of emergency/out-of-hours care also declines because of this. With there being just one out of hours/emergency vets in my area, my husband and I have no choice but to take Poppy to them when our vets is closed, and I firmly believe that Vets Now Worcester is profiteering at the expense of animal lovers like me who will pay every penny they have to get their beloved pets well again. Being the only emergency/out of hours vets in the area means they can charge what they like and provide a sub-standard service because they don’t have any competition for them to do better and be better.

Final Thoughts

I very much look forward to following this research with great interest, and to supporting both Dr David Reader and Dr Scott Summer in any way I can with this. If I don’t get a satisfactory response to my complaint that I sent to Vets Now Worcester I will contact my new local MP Tom Collins, my local branch of the RSPCA and I’m even prepared to go to my local paper the Worcester News with this story. One way or another I will get #JusticeForPoppy and raise some awareness of extortionate vet costs and the lack of competition in my area when it comes to emergency out of hours care for our beloved pets.

What do you all think? Have any of you reading this experienced sub-standard veterinary care for your pets when you’ve had to consult your out of hours emergency vets? Do you think the prices of veterinary care overall are much too high, especially during the current cost of living crisis? I would love to know your thoughts, please email me via lisa@lisaventura.com.