At the recent AVA Conference in Brisbane, we had the privilege of having one of our consultants sit on the ‘State of the Industry’ panel. It was a fascinating session, but it also highlighted some critical headwinds our industry needs to prepare for.
Historically, we’ve looked at the UK veterinary landscape as a 10-year preview of what might happen in Australia. Today, with the UK industry sitting at over 60% corporatisation, the results are in and they serve as a stark warning.
The promises of mass corporatisation failed to deliver:
- The Pricing Myth: Economies of scale were supposed to bring prices down; instead, they skyrocketed.
- The Quality Myth: Standards of care were supposed to become better and more consistent; instead, they became rigid and cookie-cutter.
- The Trust Deficit: Pet owners felt they lost their freedom of choice, a feeling compounded by corporate groups hiding behind the legacy names of the independent practices they acquired.
Enter the Bureaucrats
Predictably, this led to government intervention. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) stepped in. And while regulatory intervention always sounds helpful on the surface, para-government meddling rarely bodes well for business efficiency.
Ignoring the pleas of seasoned veterinary business consultants and practice owners, the CMA didn’t fix the root issues. Instead, they simply piled on paperwork and administration in an attempt to force the industry into price submission.
The Bottom Line
The end result? More compliance, more administrative drag, and significantly higher labour and registration costs. In this environment, there are no winners. Veterinary practices have become far more expensive to run, and pet owners are the ones wearing the ever-increasing costs. As Australian practice owners, the question we must ask ourselves now is: How do we chart a different course?
During the panel, a poignant question from the audience shifted the entire room’s attention: “How did this happen in the UK? Were there red flags that everyone ignored?”
The answer from UK veterinary market expert Alison Lambert was simple yet chilling: “We just stopped listening.”
Alison expanded on this, noting that UK practices stopped listening to clients’ cost concerns, shifting focus toward selling products and services rather than solving problems. The industry forgot to focus on the irreplaceable, hands-on value that only a vet can provide – consulting, physical examinations, and surgery. When medicine is treated as a generic product rather than a deeply personal service, client trust erodes.
The measurable red flag in the UK was a slow, steady decline in patient visits. For a time, clinics masked this decline by simply raising fees. But the compounding loss of the customer base was predictable and inevitable.
It’s Happening in Australia Right Now
This isn’t a distant threat; it is our current reality. Over the past three years, pet visits to Australian vet clinics have declined by 1% to 2% annually. Comparing April this year to April last year, visits dropped another 2%. Compounded over three years, Australian clinics are seeing roughly 6% fewer patients. This quiet drain on our businesses is driven by a perfect storm of factors:
- The Rise of “Dr. Google” & AI: Clients are getting confident, immediate answers online – even if those answers are entirely incorrect.
- Vaccination Aversion: Post-COVID research from the US shows a distinct rise in vaccine hesitancy, translating directly to pet owners skipping routine care.
- Economic Strains: The financial rollercoaster of the last several years has tightened household budgets.
- Corporate Distraction: Business models focused on product delivery rather than personal service have fractured client trust.
- The Efficiency Trap: Clinics are continually raising prices just to offset internal inefficiencies caused by arduous compliance and complex labor legislation (modern payroll administration being a prime example).
How to Protect Your Practice
To buck this trend, independent veterinary business owners must pivot from raising prices to optimizing operations.
- Prioritise True Efficiency: Price increases can only protect your margins for so long. To survive a shrinking client pool, you must eliminate “dead time” and optimise team workflows. A good example is looking at when your first surgical patient gets on the table. In many practices it’s 10:30-11am – it should be at 9am.
- Outsource non-veterinary tasks: We are talking very specifically about non-veterinary tasks that clients do not see! For example outsourcing your incoming telephone calls to a generic call centre is a bad idea! But what about bookeeping? We see so many practices tasking an untrained admin person or nurse with the bookkeeping. We have measured the efficiency, and a trained bookkeeper can reconcile a set of books more than 5 times faster, so use a trained bookkeeper instead and use your onsite team for hands on work with pets and customers.
- Reinforce Your Unique Value: Remind clients, in the consult room, at reception, and via marketing of the things only you can do. Ditch generic, automated reminders and use highly personalised communication that reflects your team’s voice.
- Listen via Feedback Loops: Implement automated review and feedback systems. Actively seek out client pain points so you can save relationships before patients walk out the door for good.
- Track, Measure, and React: Not every practice is declining; some are thriving. But without tracking your month-on-month active client numbers, you are managing by guesswork.
- Don’t be afraind to play the ‘local card’: Pet owners prefer privately owned practices. If you have a lot of corporate competition you can use this to your advantage. But make sure you are offering a personal service.
