Veterinary care is undergoing a quiet but profound transformation. For most of its history, the sector was built on small, independent, clinician-led practices focused on medical expertise and local relationships. The trusted family vet was as much a part of the community as the greengrocer or post office, and the rhythm of care was reactive rather than proactive. Today the landscape looks very different. Veterinary groups are being reshaped by consumer expectations, digital innovation, and strategic ownership. Care is no longer only about treating illness, instead it is increasingly about experience, convenience, and emotional connection. Clinics are being designed to feel more like boutique hotels than medical surgeries, services are being packaged in subscription formats, and digital tools are at the centre of the customer journey.
The turning point came with deregulation. Until 1999, UK law restricted ownership of veterinary practices to qualified vets. This structure kept the sector fragmented and highly localised, with thousands of small practices owned by their senior clinicians. However, after deregulation, corporate ownership was allowed for the first time, paving the way for consolidation on a scale previously unthinkable. By 2024, six major groups – including Mars through Linnaeus, CVC through Medivet, and EQT, Silverlake and Nestlé through IVC Evidensia – together controlled more than 60% of practices in the UK. Consolidation brought investment, technology, and scale, and shifted the focus from simply delivering medical care to building customer relationships and designing holistic customer experiences.
The customer experience piece is emerging as the key differentiator between veterinary services now and those of old, even if the changes that are being made currently seem small. Simeon Bird, Client VP – Europe at Mars Veterinary Health, tells us that these changes can be as simple as creating a website that is intuitive and informative. “We have started to introduce online booking which is quite innovative in the sector even though it is a standard in other sectors like hospitality,” he says. This kind of change can be seen at Kin Community Vets which is currently transitioning to a customer-first model, with an intuitive, informative website that offers online bookings and the Kin Care Club which is a subscription plan that allows pet owners to buy membership for the year.
Another example of a veterinary service that is doing this in spades is Creature Comforts, founded by vet Russell Welsh. It has been designed around customer needs rather than the traditional surgery model and clinics are warm, welcoming spaces more like living rooms than hospitals. Customers have access to their pets’ medical records in real time while staff are hired not only for their technical skill but for their empathy and ability to embody a care-first ethos. Simply, it strives for excellence to encourage continued loyalty, an ideology others have also been incorporating into their models.
“Clinics are being designed to feel more like boutique hotels than medical surgeries, services are being packaged in subscription formats, and digital tools are at the centre of the customer journey.”
To fully understand how this migration has taken place, it is crucial to examine how ownership has changed over the last 20 years or so. Increasingly, corporations such as Mars and CVC are acquiring vets, bringing expertise in branding, consumer engagement and supply chain management that were not possible on an individual level. It has also allowed for increased integration, with pet care becoming one facet of these larger organisations’ ecosystems, alongside food, retail, diagnostics and digital platforms. Simeon tells us: “Alongside our supermarket household name pet brands we also have science and diagnostics, which means we have access to lots of innovation and digital technology that really complements our overall potential offering to clients. We work very closely with that team.” Case in point, under Mars, Linnaeus has integrated wellness products, digital tools, and loyalty programmes into its offering.
It’s clear that the growth potential in this space is substantial. Pet ownership is rising, with more than 60% of UK households now owning at least one pet, while spending on pet care continues to climb. Veterinary services grew by 7.1% in the first quarter of 2025, even as broader retail markets softened, and consumers are increasingly willing to pay for premium services, personalised care, and digital convenience. Simeon explains: “Increasingly, with certain segments like Gen Z, pets are almost humanised to a certain extent. However, overall as a sector it is very clinically focused, which while being extremely important and something we’re very proud of, we need to find the right balance with attention on the customer experience too.
“So that’s why I think the opportunity is huge.”
Preventive care and subscription models, such as wellness plans that include routine medication and health checks, are growing steadily. Around 35% of UK pet owners already subscribe to such plans, and the share is climbing year on year. Simeon compares this growth to his time at telecommunication company Orange. “We were about 10% contracts, 90% pay-as-you-go when I started at Orange. The veterinary sector is already at around 30%/70% and it is increasing year-on-year. It’s a real opportunity to build a subscription structure to improve access to care by improving affordability so that more pets get the care they need – similar to those we’re increasingly seeing in human health.”
In order to keep up with these changes, the door has now been opened to talent from outside the clinical world. As the sector professionalises, vet groups are increasingly turning to leaders from more consumer-centric sectors, like retail, hospitality, and telecoms – industries built on customer intimacy, loyalty, and the delivery of seamless experiences. Speaking to Simeon it seemed clear that forward-looking veterinary businesses are increasingly now looking for customer-focused leadership talent. He told us: “The core premise to our business is to have a small, lean central support team, so clinicians and the people in practice can spend their time serving customers and treating patients. Then the overhead and burden of the administrative support are managed by the central team.
“It’s about making sure you have the right people in the right roles to better service our clients , deliver the best clinical care, and make the business successful.”
“Around 35% of UK pet owners already subscribe to such plans, and the share is climbing year on year.”
As we explored in a previous column, human health is heading in a similar direction, now positioning the passive patient as the engaged customer who is able to track their fitness through wearables, manage medication and diagnostics through apps, and purchase subscription-based health services. Consumers are learning to expect healthcare that is personalised, transparent, and convenient. But how does this relate to veterinary care?
Because of the deregulation, the animal health space may be able to provide a glimpse into where human healthcare is heading, offering a blueprint for scalable, digital-first, customer-oriented services. With the CMA due to publish its provisional report in summer 2025 and final recommendations by year-end, the sector may also offer an early example of how regulation and market reform shape the balance between consumer protection, professional autonomy, and corporate scale.
“Consumers are learning to expect healthcare that is personalised, transparent, and convenient.”
Looking ahead, it’s clear that the future of animal healthcare will be shaped by how veterinary businesses marry their long-established reputation for care for sick or injured animals with building long-term relationships with their human customers. Bringing together diagnostics, digitisation, subscription-based care and preventive health services, for customers’ and animals’ benefit, in local services that put innovation and customer-centricity at the heart of their operations will be critical. Customer intimacy will be a strategic imperative, rather than an option.
What is happening in veterinary care is not confined to pets alone but offers a live case study for the wider healthcare sector, showing how clinical expertise can be fused with digital tools and customer intimacy to create care that is proactive, personal and emotionally resonant. The changes shaping animal health today may prove to be a model for how we experience human healthcare in the future.
