In their provisional report, the CMA last year set out a plan to cap the fee for veterinary prescriptions at £16. They claimed that this was “roughly equal to the average price charged by independent FOPs [first opinion practices]”.
However, there has been substantial debate and controversy over this – and our VetHelpDirect Price Comparison figures do not support the idea that this is the average among independent veterinary practices. So is this a reasonable fee? Is it too high, or too low? Or has it been pulled out of the air on the grounds that no-one can argue?
How much is the average prescription fee?
The CMA argue that the median is £20, but that independents are substantially cheaper, at under £16. Our data, however, suggest that actually the price are somewhat higher. For all the practices who have submitted prices and not opted-out of the Price Comparison, the average prescription fee is £23.31 (median £23.10); and for independents it is £21.16 (median £20.00).
It’s worth bearing in mind that the “all practices” figure only includes about 600 from the large veterinary group prices; but the independent prescription fee is based on 905 non-corporate small animal practices.
We have submitted this information to the CMA as a corrective to their own figures, which we feel are inaccurate. Interestingly, one colleague has reported that the £16 may have been in part derived from research in the early 2000s!
Why is there a prescription fee?
Essentially, you are paying for the veterinary surgeon’s time to assess the patient’s clinical history, medical requirements, and contraindications, determine what the benefit:risk balance is from the various medical options, and decide which is the best medication, and what is the best dose. The vet then has to fill in the paperwork (which usually takes me about 5 minutes per script, although some electronic systems make this faster). However, the key thing is that you aren’t paying for the bit of paper or electronic file: you are paying for the time taken to make that decision.
A lot of people will now of course say: “hang on, it only takes a couple of minutes, and they prescribe it every day, so how can it be worth £XX?”. The answer is that yes, it might only take me a few minutes to decide which medication: because I’ve been doing this for quite a while now and was very thoroughly trained in how to make these benefit:risk assessments fast. (We used to call them risk:benefit assessments, but the VMD , the medicines regulator, have issued guidelines that we should actually say it the other way round, so I’m trying hard to remember that…). You’re paying for the veterinary surgeon’s skill and knowledge.
What if there is more than one item on the prescription?
This is a little complex – there is no legal reason why you cannot put multiple medications on the same prescription; however, if there are different repeat numbers or expiry dates, then that isn’t an ideal solution. In addition, the client might prefer to order different medications from different suppliers, in which case separate ones might be more appropriate.
However, the amount of actual work the vet has to do in terms of deciding if the medication is suitable and safe is roughly the same for each medication – in fact, the more medications, the more complicated it becomes, as there is more chance of unexpected interactions between different drugs. For this reason, many (although not all) practices will charge per medication.
How much is a vet’s time worth?
According to the SPVS survey, in 2025 the median hourly rate for a vet was £28.56 (yep, that’s what they’re paid on average). So of that prescription fee, the vet costs perhaps £2.38.
Oh, and the profit margin of practices? That’s around 10-15%, often lower for independents. Plus the government takes 20% in VAT. So if the average prescription fee is £21.36 and the practice was making no profit from it at all, you’d still expect to pay £18.16.
Where does the rest of the money go?
The rest goes into maintaining the business and paying all the support staff who allow that vet to practice! However, there’s another element – you’re also paying for the liability: the vet must have professional indemnity insurance in case something goes wrong, and that figure is factored in too.
That’s why the cap on prescription fees matters:
Not because it’s reducing the amount of profit the practice makes, but because that cost has to be covered somewhere. This is the so-called “waterbed phenomenon” – and it’s why capping prescription fees BELOW the cost of providing them is likely to lead to increases in prices elsewhere. And if multiple medications all have to be put on one billed prescription, the costs to the practice start mounting up – costs which will have to be recouped somewhere else.
Are there situations where vets are overcharging?
Probably. And some practices do charge a lot more – we have one practice on file that charges over £50 for a written prescription. But price capping written prescriptions probably isn’t somewhere where there are loads of profits in most practices that can easily be cut out without impacting prices across the board – especially if the CMA wants vets to issue more prescriptions going forward.
Personally, I’m not opposed to capping the price on prescriptions, in principle. It is an extra cost at a time when everything is increasingly more and more expensive. However, it’s not getting any cheaper to run a veterinary practice either, and I fear that putting a cap on prescription fees will just push up consult fees for everyone: and that makes veterinary care even harder to access for people with limited funds.
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