The number of veterinary surgeons on the RCVS Register has increased substantially since the mid-2000s, with the size of the UK-practising registration category doubling from 16,000 to 32,000 between 2006 and 2024. The number of concerns raised with the RCVS, however, has not increased at anything like the same rate, although there have been fluctuations. The number of concerns raised with the RCVS about veterinary surgeons was stable at between 600 and 700 annually between 2004 and 2007, before gradually increasing to almost 1,000 in 2016, before then falling considerably to around 550 in 2019. There has been another increase in recent years, with recent annual concern numbers approaching 800. Nevertheless, viewed across the whole period, the number of concerns has remained relatively stable compared with the growth of the profession.
Why have the numbers changed?
Part of the answer may lie in changes to the way concerns and complaints are handled. In 2008/9, a new concerns procedure introduced a stage of investigation by a ‘case examiner group’ before consideration by the Preliminary Investigation Committee (PIC). The subsequent period saw an increase in the number of concerns recorded.
Another notable change occurred following the introduction of the Veterinary Client Mediation Service (VCMS) in 2016. At the same time, the RCVS amended its concerns process to include a new triage stage for enquiries, allowing matters that may be suitable for mediation to be signposted to VCMS rather than entering the RCVS regulatory concerns investigation process. The introduction of this approach coincides with a substantial decline in the number of concerns progressing through the RCVS concerns process at that time.
However, this does not necessarily mean that fewer clients were contacting the RCVS with concerns. The RCVS continues to receive around 3,500 enquiries each year but now has an alternative route to which appropriate matters can be signposted. This demonstrates why changes in the concerns process need to be considered when interpreting trends over time.
Types of complaints
It is also important to distinguish between complaints handled through the VCMS and concerns raised with the RCVS. VCMS received almost 2,000 complaints about veterinary professionals in the year 2017–2018, increasing to just under 4,000 in 2020–2021. Since then, the annual total has remained at around 3,600 complaints. By comparison, considerably fewer enquiries have entered the RCVS regulatory concerns investigation process. This reflects the different roles of the two processes. The RCVS concerns investigation process focuses on matters that potentially raise serious issues relating to professional conduct and fitness to practise, while the VCMS can help resolve a much broader range of complaints between veterinary practices and their clients.
‘Standard of care’ is consistently the largest category of complaint received by the VCMS, accounting for more than half of complaints (around 2,000 annually) in recent years. This is considerably higher than other categories, with customer service accounting for around 750 complaints and clinical fees around 400. Similarly, ‘veterinary care’ accounts for the majority of concerns handled by RCVS: 500 out of 650 concerns raised in 2024.
How we investigate concerns
All concerns raised with the RCVS are considered by the Preliminary Investigation Committee (PIC). At Stage 1, concerns are considered to determine whether they can be concluded at this initial stage. Matters that cannot be concluded at Stage 1 are considered by a Stage 2 PIC, which has the ability to refer cases to the Disciplinary Committee (DC).
The number of cases progressing to Stage 2 is considerably lower than the overall number of concerns raised with the RCVS. For example, in 2024, around 600 concerns were raised, compared with 36 matters progressing to Stage 2 and 12 veterinary surgeons appearing as respondents at a Disciplinary Committee hearing. These figures should be interpreted with some caution, as they represent activity at different stages of the process within the same year rather than tracking the progression of individual concerns. A concern raised in one year may progress to a later stage in a subsequent year. Nevertheless, the figure provides useful context on the volume of activity occurring at different stages of the regulatory process.
Trends over time
One way of accounting for the effect of a growing veterinary profession is to look at the number of RCVS concerns per 1,000 UK-practising veterinary surgeons on the Register. On this measure, concerns have declined over the longer term. For instance, there were, on average, around 40 concerns per 1,000 vets between 2006 and 2010, compared with 20 per 1,000 between 2020 and 2024.
However, this measure needs to be interpreted carefully. Being registered as UK-practising does not necessarily mean that a veterinary surgeon regularly sees clients. Some vets may undertake large amounts of client-facing clinical work, while others may have little or no direct client contact. The number of consultations undertaken by individual veterinary surgeons will also vary considerably. We therefore cannot use this measure to estimate an individual veterinary surgeon’s likelihood of receiving a complaint or concern. Instead, it provides one way of putting the number of concerns into context alongside the substantial growth in the registered profession.
Looking only at the longer-term trend could also obscure more recent changes. RCVS concerns increased from around 480 in the year 2022–2023 to 600 in 2023–2024 and 700 in 2024–2025. VCMS complaints have been more stable over the same period, at approximately 3,600 in 2022–2023, 3,500 in 2023–2024 and 3,600 in 2024–2025. The recent increase in RCVS concerns is therefore important to monitor. However, the longer-term data provide useful context showing that the veterinary profession has grown substantially over the past two decades without an equivalent increase in the number of concerns entering the RCVS regulatory process.
As with many administrative datasets, the numbers reflect what enters and progresses through a particular process, rather than providing a direct measure of the underlying prevalence of client dissatisfaction or professional conduct issues. Changes in processes, routes for resolving complaints and the composition of the veterinary profession all affect what we see in the data. Understanding these limitations is as important as understanding the trends themselves.
