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Why understanding the realities behind complaints matters when considering future consumer remedies
At VCMS, we spend every day helping veterinary professionals and pet owners navigate complaints and find ways forward. Recent discussions about the future of veterinary complaints handling have generated a great deal of interest across the profession and among consumers. Everyone wants to ensure that pet owners have access to fair, effective routes for resolving concerns when things go wrong.
Looking Beyond “Right” and “Wrong”
When people think about complaints, it is natural to assume that the process is simply about deciding who is right and who is wrong. In reality, many veterinary complaints sit in a much greyer area. For example, a pet owner may be unhappy with an outcome even though appropriate treatment was provided. A veterinary professional may have acted entirely within accepted clinical practice, but a client may still feel they were not given sufficient information to make an informed decision. Sometimes the complaint centres on communication rather than clinical care. In other cases, concerns about costs, expectations or understanding become the real source of dissatisfaction.
The Types of Complaints We See
The complaints that come to VCMS often involve a combination of clinical judgement and decision-making, communication, expectations and emotion.
What Pet Owners Often Want
Many pet owners want an opportunity to ask questions and receive answers. They want to understand what happened, have their concerns acknowledged and receive reassurance that lessons have been learned.
What Veterinary Professionals Tell Us
Veterinary professionals care deeply about animal welfare and client care. Many welcome opportunities to explain decision-making, provide additional information and rebuild trust where relationships have broken down.
Informing Future Discussions
Whether future arrangements include mediation, adjudication, an ombudsman model or a combination of approaches, they will need to reflect the fact that veterinary complaints are often nuanced, multi-faceted and often involve emotionally charged situations. Focusing on work within practices to prevent situations that lead to complaints and strengthening complaint resolution at a local level should remain an ongoing priority for the sector. With legislative reform on the near horizon, the government White Paper recognises the importance of local complaint resolution and the benefits of independent mediation by the VCMS. The new regulatory framework and consumer related remedies following on from the CMA market investigation need time to bed in and to allow the need for any further complaint redress pathways to be assessed. This time will allow the need for additional process beyond the wider regulatory, civil legal and consumer claims and mediation to be evaluated as well as full assessment of the time, cost and complexity of any further adjudication processes. Learning from Experience
Every complaint provides an opportunity to learn. Collectively, complaints offer valuable insight into what matters most to pet owners, where communication can be improved and how trust can be strengthened.
Common Complaint Examples
- Concerns about whether all treatment options were fully discussed
- Questions about prognosis and likely outcomes
- Complaints about communication throughout an animal’s treatment
- Disputes regarding fees, estimates and value for money
- Cases where treatment did not achieve the hoped-for outcome
- Concerns about informed consent and decision making
- Complaints following the illness or loss of a much-loved pet
About VCMS
The Veterinary Client Mediation Service provides an independent, impartial mediation service to help veterinary professionals and clients resolve complaints constructively.
