The RCVS should use existing veterinary systems for the CMA data remedy

The CMA finished its household pet veterinary investigation in March 2026. The Order and the Find a Vet data work are now moving from policy into implementation. Underneath that sits a practical question. How should the data actually move from practices into the public systems people will use?

For practice managers, this matters more than it may first appear. If the technical design is sensible, your team should be able to maintain key practice information and standard prices once, using systems you already rely on, and have that information passed on accurately. If the design is clumsy, practices will end up retyping the same details into separate portals, updating websites by hand, and then trying to correct errors when comparison sites scrape outdated or incomplete information.

The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons runs Find a Vet and collects a levy, but the CMA is the body that enforces the remedy. That distinction matters. The requirement is about getting accurate public information into the market. It does not follow that the College must invent every schema, submission route, portal and feed from a blank page.

A large part of the necessary infrastructure already exists across practice management systems, compliance platforms, website systems and some comparison services. The sensible job now is to connect and govern that infrastructure properly.

Why this matters to practices

When people hear the phrase practice data, they often think first about clinical records. That is not the issue here. The CMA key practice information is a different layer: ownership, services, a standard price list, parasiticide prices, and pet care plan detail. A lot of related public facts already sit beside that in the PMS and on the website, such as opening times or emergency cover. None of that is a dump of clinical notes.

Most of that information already sits somewhere in the software and services practices use every day. Some of it is in the PMS. Some is in a website content system. Some is held in compliance tools, forms, directories or group-level reporting systems. The technical challenge is not that the sector has no data. The challenge is that the same practice facts are spread across multiple places, maintained in different ways, and often copied manually.

If the RCVS creates a closed process that expects every practice to log into another standalone interface and maintain a separate dataset, that increases cost and duplication immediately. It also makes data quality worse over time, because every extra place you ask a team to update becomes another place that drifts out of date.

Practice managers know this pattern well. The version on the website says one thing, the directory says another, the PMS still has an older opening time, and the emergency arrangements changed last month. That is exactly the sort of confusion the CMA remedy is meant to reduce.

The real risk is not no directory. It is bad directories

Even if the official route is awkward, the market will not simply wait. Suppliers, publishers and lead-generation sites will continue to build directories and comparison tools because there is obvious public demand for them.

The question is whether those services will use official, well-governed data feeds or whether they will fall back on scraping websites, buying commercially assembled datasets, or asking practices to maintain yet another profile. Once that happens, accuracy becomes harder to control and there is more room for stale information, mismatched prices and pay-to-play ranking models.

That would be a poor result for practices and for the public. It would also cut across the purpose of the remedy. If accurate official data is easy to submit, easy to validate and easy to reuse, good comparison services can be built on top of it. If official data is hard to work with, unofficial substitutes will fill the gap.

A better approach

There is a practical middle path between doing nothing and building everything internally. The RCVS can set standards, governance and public interest rules, while using existing technical capability in the market. A sensible approach would include the following six points.

• Review existing schemas before designing a new one. Much of the basic structure for practice identity, locations, services and pricing already exists in PMS, compliance and website systems.
• Publish an open technical specification early. Practices and suppliers need a clear data model, validation rules and update logic in good time if they are to prepare reliable feeds.
• Support APIs, bulk uploads and delegated submissions. A small independent practice may prefer a simple upload, while larger groups and software suppliers may need automated methods.
• Let practices use market-led compliance tools before the RCVS platform is live. If a practice can prepare data in a structured way now, that reduces last-minute manual work later.
• Commission capable providers to operate technical services at arm's length. The College can remain the accountable public body without having to become a specialist software operator in every layer.
• Treat Find a Vet as reusable public data infrastructure, not just another closed directory. If it provides trustworthy feeds outward as well as a public-facing search inward, the wider market can use official data rather than scrape junk.

What good technical choices would look like

From a practice point of view, the best outcome is straightforward. You maintain key practice information in one managed place, or at least in one agreed workflow, and that information can then populate your website, your official Find a Vet record and any authorised downstream comparison services.

That does not require every supplier to hold exactly the same database. It does require common definitions, transparent validation and a reliable way to submit and update data. For example, a standard price item needs a clear name, a practice or branch identifier, an effective date and simple rules for whether tax, consumables or out of hours elements are included. Without that structure, even honest submissions become difficult to compare.

Open specifications help everyone. Practices know what they are being asked to provide. PMS and website suppliers can build once against a stable standard. The RCVS can test and govern submissions consistently. Third parties can consume official data in a way that is visible and accountable.

Closed or late specifications have the opposite effect. They encourage rushed workarounds, manual uploads, one-off mappings and supplier-by-supplier exceptions. Those are expensive to maintain and usually less accurate in the long run.

Why arm's-length delivery may be the practical choice

There is nothing unusual about a regulator or professional body defining the rules while specialist providers handle parts of the technical delivery. In fact, that may be the safer route here. Operating submission APIs, validation pipelines, bulk import services and public data feeds is a specialist job.

If the RCVS commissions capable providers at arm's length, it can focus on governance, accountability and service standards. That gives practices a clearer support model and reduces the risk that Find a Vet becomes a closed directory with limited technical reuse.

For suppliers, this approach also creates a cleaner market signal. Build to the published standard, help practices keep accurate data, and the official ecosystem can use it. That is better than each provider trying to guess what a future portal may require.

What practice managers should ask now

If you are responsible for operations, pricing or compliance in a practice, the useful questions are quite practical. Where is your current source of truth for branch details, opening times and emergency arrangements? How are standard prices maintained today? Can your PMS or website supplier export those fields in a structured format? If prices change, who updates what, and how many places need editing?

Those questions will tell you how ready you are for the CMA remedy regardless of the final RCVS implementation route. They also help you spot where duplicate data entry is likely to become a burden.

The broad policy aim is not controversial. Better public information should help clients make informed choices. The practical success of that aim will depend heavily on whether the technical model respects the systems practices already use.

If official data is difficult to submit or reuse, the market will not stop building directories. More shadow directories will emerge using incomplete, scraped or commercially supplied data, with greater scope for pay-to-play rankings. That is the outcome the regulations seek to avoid. The best way to avoid that is to make accurate official data easy to integrate, govern and reuse.