It's barking mad! Inside the capital's rising vet bill crisis

As government watchdogs launch an inquiry into the soaring prices of treatments and medicines charged by veterinary practices, Emma Loffhagen talks to pet owners being forced to pay staggering sums to save their beloved animals

- Emma Loffhagen

WHEN Emily’s ve t noticed an abnormality with her 16-year-old cat Bella’s liver, her immediate concern — like it would be for all animal owners — was with keeping her pet alive.

“You kind of go into A&E mode of ‘right, she’s gravely ill, what can we do to save her’,” says the writer and mother of two, 41, from north London. “First it was her liver, then they found fluid on her lungs, and then she lost her eyesight. One thing kind of led to another to another — her body was just shutting down.”

Over the next month, as Bella’s condition rapidly deteriorated, Emily and her husband took their vet’s advice and tried whatever they could — injections, pills, weeks of overnight care — in a desperate bid to prolong her life. They ended up spending an eye-watering £10,000 in the space of just a month — a significant hit on their attempts at saving for a house.

The couple are far from alone in feeling that they’d been overcharged. Last week, the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) regulator announced that it is to launch a formal investigation into the veterinary market after identifying “multiple concerns”, including that pet owners may be overpaying for treatments and medicines.

For many of the country’s 17 million pet owners, the news is hardly a surprise. Since the investigation was announced, the CMA has reportedly received an “unprecedented” 56,000 responses from concerned pet owners and vets themselves, with owners up and down the UK taking to social media to complain of “astronomical” fees for minor procedures, such as £400 for fixing a rabbit’s dislocated toe and £7,000 to mend a dog’s broken leg.