CMA veterinary data sharing and the RCVS Find a Vet levy

Practice managers and principals now need to treat CMA price transparency as an operational job, not just a policy argument. The Competition and Markets Authority finished its market investigation into household pet veterinary services in March 2026, and the resulting Order will require first opinion practices to publish certain business information and provide that same key practice information to the RCVS.

The practical consequence is straightforward. Information that may currently sit in a tariff document, on a website, in reception guidance, and in a pet care plan leaflet will need to be consistent, publishable, and ready to supply in a structured way. If it is not consistent now, this is the point at which that becomes visible.

The work for a practice is not about preparing clinical records for publication. It is about getting the commercial layer accurate and keeping it accurate across the website, the till, the PMS, and any public listing that uses the same feed.

What first opinion practices will have to provide

Under the published remedy, first opinion practices must publish ownership information, services, a standard price list, parasiticide prices, and details of pet care plans. They must also send that key practice information to the RCVS.

It is worth being precise here because teams are already asking the wrong question. This is not clinical notes and it is not the full client list. The required data is business and pricing information about the practice, not a transfer of consult histories or medical records into a public system.

For many practices, the immediate task is to identify where each of those items is currently held and who is responsible for keeping it correct. If the standard price list in reception does not match what the website says, and neither quite matches what staff usually quote, that needs fixing before the data is published more widely.

What the RCVS will do with that information

The RCVS is expected to place the information on an enhanced Find a Vet service and share it with approved third parties. The purpose is to help pet owners compare practices more easily and to support transparency across the market.

For a practice manager, this means the same information may appear in more than one place. It may be seen on Find a Vet, reused by approved comparison services, and checked by pet owners against what they are told on the phone or at the desk. The discipline required is therefore less about one publication exercise and more about maintaining one reliable source of truth.

What the levy may cost

The final CMA report estimated that the levy would be about £150 to £250 per practice to set up and about £450 to £550 a year thereafter. The exact figures are set out through a Funding Order rather than the headline report, so practices should look there for the formal amounts once finalised.

Even before the final figures are confirmed, managers can plan for the shape of the cost. There is likely to be an initial setup cost followed by an ongoing annual levy to fund the enhanced Find a Vet service and the supporting data arrangements. Whether a practice likes the policy or not, it is sensible to budget for it rather than leave it as an unwelcome surprise.

The published timetable

• September 2026: the Order is due.
• June 2027: the RCVS is expected to be ready to receive data.
• September 2027: businesses must supply the required data.

Those are the key dates practice managers should work back from. If price lists, parasiticide prices, ownership wording, or pet care plan descriptions are still being argued over in late 2027, the practice will have left the real work too late.

What managers should do now

Start by checking the data you already publish or quote. Review the website, printed tariff, estimate templates, pet care plan wording, and any reception crib sheets. Ask whether they all say the same thing and whether the same service is named consistently in the PMS and on the till.

Then decide who owns each part of the information. In many practices, ownership details sit with directors, prices sit with the principal or finance lead, pet care plan wording sits with management or marketing, and reception carries the risk when the public wording and the invoicing setup do not match. The job is easier when each item has one responsible owner and one review point.

It is also worth checking whether your PMS can help maintain a clean structured price list and support data sharing work when the time comes. That does not mean any one PMS is uniquely able to do it, but a system that already holds clear prices and plan details in a maintainable format will make compliance easier than a patchwork of spreadsheets and documents.

Who enforces the Order

The CMA, not the RCVS, enforces the Order. That distinction matters when teams discuss the issue internally. The RCVS may be the body receiving and publishing the information through Find a Vet, but it is not the organisation setting the legal requirement or enforcing compliance with the Order itself.

For practice managers, that means two separate jobs. One is the operational job of preparing and supplying accurate information. The other is making sure senior decision makers understand that this is a compliance timetable set by the CMA, not an optional data project created by the RCVS.

What this does not change

This remedy does not turn the Find a Vet feed into a copy of your clinical record. Clinical notes, attachments, messages, and the full client list are outside the required practice information described here. That is important to explain clearly to staff, especially if concern about privacy starts to blur together with concern about price transparency.

It also does not remove the need for good internal controls. Public pricing information only helps if the quoted price, invoiced price, and PMS setup all match. The more visible the practice becomes on comparison tools, the more important it is that reception guidance, estimates, and charge codes stay aligned.

The practical conclusion for practices

The most useful response is to get organised early. Build a standard price list that matches the till, make sure parasiticide pricing and pet care plan details are current, check the ownership statement, and decide how updates will be reviewed before they go live.

Practices that treat this as routine data management will be in a much better position than practices that leave it to a last minute website exercise. The requirement is coming from the CMA, the RCVS will publish and share the key practice information, and the operational work inside the practice starts now.