The owners of a veterinary clinic have revealed a ‘behind the scenes’ breakdown of their expenditures amid rising concerns about the sky-high costs of pet care.

Magnolia House Veterinary Clinic, owned by Dalya and Stan Livy, in Dorset, took to Facebook to address the speculation, adding that the clinic is ‘painfully aware of rising costs’.

It follows the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) warning to pet owners that they might be paying too much at the vet due to a lack of information – including price lists – about the best practices and treatment for their pets.

‘I personally, and many others within the veterinary profession, welcome the CMA investigation,’ Dalya told FEMAIL. She continued: ‘There are many issues that should be reviewed.’

To address concerns from cash-strapped owners, Dalya broke down the costs of running the clinic and claimed the increased prices do not go in their favour, adding that it can often be a struggle to cover the £60,000 monthly cost of running their practice.

Dalya told FEMAIL: ‘There are many issues that should be reviewed, like the outdated legislation within the Veterinary Surgeons Act, lack of transparency around corporatisation, and lack of choice of veterinary service provision in some areas.’

However, Dalya wants owners to understand that decreasing the price of pet care is ‘not as simple as charging less for medication’.

She explained: ‘The costs of running a veterinary practice are very high, and the profit margins relatively low, yet far too often it seems costs of veterinary care are vilified by people who have no idea of the costs of providing that veterinary care.

‘Costs, I should add, both in the strict financial terms and the cost to the mental health of the profession.

‘We are losing good people due to unreasonable pressures from the pet-owning public, which makes it all the harder to provide good patient and client care.’

She added: ‘Pet owners should be reassured that their vets can and will work with them to provide good and contextualised care, and will, and do, discuss treatment options to fit the available budgets.

‘And that local community practices are part of, and committed to, their communities.’

In the post shared last year, Dalya broke down the practice’s payments. She explained that 20 per cent of every vet bill in the UK is VAT: ‘We are basically a glorified tax collector in that respect, and 20 per cent of what you pay us goes directly to the government.’ 

Dalya then went on to clarify where the remainder of money is spent. 

She wrote: ’40-50 per cent on staff wages, including vets, veterinary nurses, animal care assistants, receptionists, cleaners, practice managers, etc.

’15-20% on overheads and fixed costs (mortgage, rent, electric, gas – and our bills quadrupled in January 2023 when our contract switched over.

‘Water, phone, internet, all the many insurance policies we carry, accountant fees, health and safety company fees, employment law company fees, IT support fees, clinical waste disposal, regular waste disposal, card processing fees, website hosting, etc.

’25 to 40 per cent on COGS (Cost Of Goods and Services). These are all the medications we buy from our suppliers, all the consumables (syringes, needles, catheters, dressings, suture material, sterile surgical gowns, gloves, cleaning materials)

‘All the fees the outside labs charge us, the fees pet crematoria charge us, and everything that we need to buy to help us care for your pets.

‘Five-10 per cent profit (and this profit is taxed again by the government at 25 per cent)

‘If you add up the above percentages, you will notice that it is very possible for profit to be zero, or even in the negative numbers, and for some practices or in some months, it is, and some of those practices have had to close their doors as a consequence,’ Dalya wrote. 

She said that the cost of running her practice, which employs 14 staff, is approximately £60,000 per month.

‘That is the real cost of running even a small veterinary practice. And it only scales upwards for larger practices,’ the vet wrote.

There are various routes practices can take to try and keep costs at a minimum, including shopping around for ‘favourable prices’ for COGS, such as arthritis medicine.

Bulk buying and buying groups can also help keep spending costs at bay without compromising the quality of their service.

However, Dalya maintains that cutting costs can lead to reduced quality of care. She said: ‘The decision may become: Do we compromise our pet and client service and take these measures, or do we increase prices again?’ 

She continued: ‘One question that often comes up is: Why can we buy medication online for less than the vets charge? Most practices have historically used medication mark-ups, meaning charging clients more than we purchase them for to keep service fees (consults, surgery, hospitalisation) lower.

‘The online retailers have thrown a massive wrench into the works here – because they purchase (and sell) drugs in such large quantities, they get big discounts from the manufacturers, so that in many cases, they can sell the drugs to you for less money than vets are buying them for.’

‘And it is illegal for vets to buy them [medicine] online, we are strictly regulated and have to buy them from one of only three available national wholesalers.

‘Whether we reduce our drug markups to encourage clients to continue buying medication from us, or whether we provide written prescriptions for our clients to buy medication online, the result is the same – if vet practice drug revenue goes down, our service fees must come up to compensate.

‘The only winners are the drug manufacturers and the online retailers. So that is a factor as well.’

Dalya concluded: ‘We are all here, vets and pet owners alike, because we love animals and want to care for them. None of us would involve money in this equation if we could help it, but that is the reality of the world we live in.’

It comes as the CMA have decided to ‘provisionally’ launch a market investigation into the veterinary sector after they received an ‘unprecedented’ 56,000 responses to their initial review.

The review found that consumers may not be given enough information – including price lists – to enable them to choose the best practice and treatment for their pet.

It also found that the regulatory framework for the sector is ‘outdated’ and ‘may no longer be fit for purpose’ and that there may be an overconcentration of vet ownership in certain areas.

And those working in the sector – which is worth £2billion after the covid pandemic saw pet ownership rise to two-thirds of British households – raised concerns about pressures arising from staff shortages.

The market investigation, if the findings are upheld, would give the CMA the power to compel companies to give consumers their full list of prices, impose limits on costs for things like prescription fees and potentially even enforce the sale of businesses in areas of overconcentration of ownership.

It was revealed that 80% of vet practices checked by the watchdog had no pricing online – even for the most basic of services. 

Vets are required to use signs in their reception or treatment rooms telling customers that they can get their prescriptions filled elsewhere. 

However, the CMA review found that 25 per cent of pet owners were not aware this was an option – meaning they could be missing out on savings.

CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said they launched the review last September because the veterinary sector is a ‘critical market’ for the UK’s 16 million pet owners.

She said: ‘The unprecedented response we received from the public and veterinary professionals shows the strength of feeling on this issue is high and why we were right to look into this. 

‘We have heard concerns from those working in the sector about the pressures they face, including acute staff shortages, and the impact this has on individual professionals. ‘

Ms Cardell added that the competition watchdog has made a ‘provisional decision’ to launch a market investigation due to the concerns for consumers raised by the review.

‘But our review has identified multiple concerns with the market that we think should be investigated further,’ she said.

‘These include pet owners finding it difficult to access basic information like price lists and prescription costs – and potentially overpaying for medicines. 

‘We are also concerned about weak competition in some areas, driven in part by sector consolidation, and the incentives for large corporate groups to act in ways which may reduce competition and choice. 

‘Given these strong indications of potential concern, it is time to put our work on a formal footing. We have provisionally decided to launch a market investigation because that’s the quickest route to enable us to take direct action, if needed.’ 

Previously, a dog owner said he would sell his house to cover the costs of a £20,000 vet bill.

Last year, Jaxon Feeley said his two-year-old Weimaraner called Rambo went into hypovolemic shock – a state in which severe blood or other fluid loss makes the heart unable to pump enough blood to the body. 

Mr Feeley, from Wigan, said: ‘She began vomiting throughout the night over 30 times and by Saturday morning we were in the emergency vets.’ 

On top of the condition, Rambo had also contracted stomach flu , or gastroenteritis, and her health rapidly declined.