How to handle a client complaint in a veterinary practice

Lola was a two-year-old lop rabbit. Her owner took her to an out-of-hours vet with a skin problem, and Lola later died at home. The owner complained. The treatment plan had not been agreed with her, nobody had told her what might be causing the problem or that she should keep a close eye on Lola, and the bill had no breakdown. She believed she had been charged for a night in hospital that never happened.

The practice did a lot right. It accepted that parts of the service could have been better, answered her questions in writing, and offered a small goodwill gesture plus a refund for the medication.

She still said no. When the case reached the Veterinary Client Mediation Service (VCMS), the mediator found she had not understood what a goodwill gesture was. Once that was explained, she accepted, and the practice also wrote off her outstanding £374 balance.

The VCMS drew its own lesson from the case: explain legal or technical language in plain English, rather than assuming the client understands it.

The case identified communication problems both during the treatment discussion and later in the handling of the complaint. But from March 2027, how a practice handles the reply is no longer left to its own judgment. The CMA’s Veterinary Services Market Investigation Order 2026 sets out a complaint process, timescales, a complaint log and mediation that first opinion and out-of-hours practices treating household pets must follow from the next Working Day after 22 March 2027, whatever their size.

Complaint and Actionable Complaint

The Order uses two terms, and the difference matters.

A Complaint is any expression of dissatisfaction, spoken or written, made to the practice or any of its staff, where the client wants a resolution or outcome. A client telling the receptionist they want a bill looked at counts. So does a call to a nurse asking why nobody rang back with blood results.

A Complaint becomes an Actionable Complaint if the practice has not resolved it in the normal course of business within ten Working Days. Once it becomes Actionable, the additional formal requirements in Article 21 and the Complaint Log provisions apply.

Because a Complaint can be made to anyone, everyone who deals with clients needs to recognize one and know the practice process. The Order requires practices to train all vets, nurses and other client-facing staff on it. Our guide to veterinary front desk management covers reception training more widely.

This sits alongside an existing professional duty. The RCVS Code of Professional Conduct requires vets and vet nurses to respond to clients’ complaints and criticism promptly, fully and courteously.

The first ten Working Days

The Order expects the practice to try, in good faith, to resolve the Complaint informally during the first ten Working Days.

Ask what outcome the client is seeking rather than assuming. Once a Complaint becomes Actionable, the Order expressly requires the practice to seek to understand both the complaint and the resolution the client wants. Asking earlier can also help the informal stage.

For the initial conversation, a practical approach is to move it out of the waiting room if you can, let the client finish before correcting any detail, and write down what was said, when, and who took it, on the same day.

A response can acknowledge the client’s experience without reaching conclusions about clinical liability. Where the complaint alleges negligence, seeks compensation or threatens legal action, contact your professional indemnity provider early and follow its advice before sending a substantive response. The Veterinary Defense Society asks members to get in touch early about complaints and difficult situations.

Check the record before you reply

Before anyone responds in detail, gather what the practice holds: the clinical notes, any estimate, the consent form, the invoice, and any messages sent to the client. Read them as the client would.

Contemporaneous records can be central when a complaint turns on what was discussed, agreed or documented. The VCMS reported significant increases in 2025 in complaints about record issues and about disagreements over treatment plans. Our guide to veterinary SOAP notes covers what those notes need to include.

Speak to the staff involved and record their account, while distinguishing later recollection from what was documented at the time. Being named in a complaint is stressful, even when it is unfounded, and Vetlife Helpline offers confidential support to anyone in the veterinary community.

The timetable for an Actionable Complaint

Once a Complaint becomes Actionable, a fixed sequence applies:

• When it becomes Actionable: give the client the Complaint Process and a named contact.
• Within five Working Days: acknowledge it in writing.
• Within eight weeks: send a full written response. If you need longer, write within those eight weeks to explain why and when the client will hear, which must be no later than 12 weeks.
• Throughout: record it in the Complaint Log, and keep the entry for at least 12 months after it is resolved.

For a Complaint to qualify as an Actionable Complaint under the Order, it must have been made within 12 months of the event complained of, or of the client becoming aware of it, whichever is later.

The written Complaint Process has to be on the practice website, referred to on signage in reception and on invoices, and pointed out to clients when they register or first use the practice. Article 21 lists what the process must explain, so review your current policy against it.

Writing the full response

The full response must show that the practice understood the complaint and how it reached its conclusions, set out any remedial action on offer, and include the RCVS Decision Tree, which explains the client’s routes to redress. Where the practice finds merit in some or all of the complaint, it must offer what it reasonably considers a commensurate remedy.

Answer each point the client raised. The Veterinary Defense Society suggests numbering the concerns and addressing each in turn, so that none is missed. Describe the problem in the client’s words rather than clinical shorthand, and explain legal or technical language rather than assuming the client understands it. In Lola’s case, that was the phrase “goodwill gesture”.

State the facts from the record without criticizing the client. Where feasible, have someone who was not directly involved review the response for completeness, tone and clarity before it is sent.

When the client asks for mediation

Each practice must choose a specific approved alternative dispute resolution (ADR) provider that offers mediation free to the client, and name it in the Complaint Process. The practice must then take part in mediation in good faith when the client asks, if the Actionable Complaint has been through the Complaint Process without being resolved. Broadly, this applies once the client remains dissatisfied after the final response, or once the response period has expired without a final response, subject to the Order’s exceptions.

The client must generally ask within 12 months of the final response or, if no final response was sent, within 12 months and eight weeks of the Complaint becoming Actionable. There are limited exceptions, including complaints the provider considers frivolous or vexatious, and matters already in court.

The VCMS, set up by the RCVS in 2017 and run by Nockolds Solicitors, is one approved ADR body. The Order lets practices choose any approved provider. In 2025 the VCMS concluded 940 mediations and reported a resolution rate of 78%.

Complaints that arrive online

Some clients post a review instead of contacting the practice. The Veterinary Defense Society advises responding promptly and moving the conversation from public to private. Acknowledge the review without debating clinical details, and invite the client to talk privately. Client confidentiality applies to a review reply as much as anywhere else. Our guide to online reviews and client trust covers this in more detail.

What the Complaint Log is for

The Order requires practices to review the Complaint Log periodically, and to take reasonable steps to identify and make improvements to their services or processes. The RCVS can also ask for the Complaint Process and the previous year’s log of Actionable Complaints, in a prescribed, anonymised format.

Read over a year, a log shows patterns that a single complaint hides. The most common complaint areas referred to the VCMS in 2025 included diagnostic pathways, unexpected outcomes, consent conversations and decision-making, while fees were the core issue in 14%. If the same themes recur in your own log, review the relevant consultations, records and processes to understand where the pattern is coming from. Where fee changes are a factor, see our guide to communicating a price increase to veterinary clients.

Before March 2027

Check that the practice can answer each of these before the complaint requirements apply:

• Can every client-facing team member recognize a Complaint?
• Have all vets, nurses and other client-facing staff been trained on the Complaint Process?
• Does the published Complaint Process reflect Article 21?
• Who becomes the named contact when a Complaint becomes Actionable?
• Can you identify the tenth Working Day for any open Complaint?
• Is there a Complaint Log for Actionable Complaints?
• Has the practice selected an approved ADR provider?
• Does the response template include the RCVS Decision Tree?
• Who reviews complaint themes, and the improvements that follow?

To see how Lupa OS brings clinical notes, estimates, invoices and client communications together across the practice workflow, book a demo.