CMA Complaints Process Rules for UK Vet Practices

What the CMA requires on complaints

Under the CMA's veterinary-sector reforms, your practice must run a written in-house complaints process, publish it, and handle complaints to defined timeframes. The CMA's guidance for practices is explicit that "FOPs must publish their complaint process on their website."

Most practices already deal with complaints. What the reforms add is structure: a written process clients can read in advance, fixed timeframes for acknowledging and responding, and a record you can produce on request. This guide turns the requirement into the documents and habits a practice manager needs in place.

The two timeframes that matter

The part of the rule most likely to trip a busy practice is the timing. The CMA's guidance sets two clocks running once a complaint cannot be resolved on the spot.

On acknowledgement, the guidance states that where a complaint cannot be resolved quickly, "it becomes an actionable complaint and they will need acknowledge the complaint in writing within 5 working days".

On the full reply, the guidance requires the practice to "send a full letter of response within 8 weeks of the complaint becoming actionable."

Two things follow:

• Acknowledgement is a near-immediate obligation. Five working days is roughly a week — the acknowledgement has to be a routine, reliable step, not something that waits for the practice principal to have time.
• The full response runs to a longer clock. Eight weeks gives room to investigate properly, but it is a hard outer limit, not a target. The clock starts when the complaint becomes actionable, so logging that date matters.

What your written process has to cover

A complaints process that meets the requirement is more than a promise to "take complaints seriously." Build the written document around what a client needs to know up front:

1. How to complain — the route in (who to contact, by what method), so a client does not have to guess.
2. What happens next, and when — the acknowledgement within five working days and the full response within eight weeks, stated plainly.
3. What to do if it is not resolved — the options available to the client when an in-house resolution is not possible. The CMA's package envisages practices being willing to take part in mediation in good faith where in-house resolution has been exhausted.

Publishing this on your website is the explicit requirement — it is not enough to hold the process internally and produce it only when a complaint arrives.

The complaint log

The reforms also expect a record. Keep a complaint log that captures each complaint, the dates that start the acknowledgement and response clocks, and the outcome. The practical reasons to keep it tidy from day one:

• It is the evidence the process is working. A log you can produce on request demonstrates compliance far better than an assurance that complaints are handled.
• It is reviewable. Periodic review of the log surfaces patterns — a recurring issue at one stage of the client journey, for example — that individual complaints in isolation hide.
• It may need sharing with the regulator. The package envisages the log being available to the regulator on request, so it should be kept in a form you could hand over.

Building it into practice routine

The risk with a complaints process is not writing it — it is keeping the timeframes reliable when the practice is busy. A few controls help:

1. Make acknowledgement a standard step. Assign clear responsibility for sending the written acknowledgement within five working days, so it does not depend on one person's availability.
2. Record the actionable date. The eight-week response clock runs from when the complaint becomes actionable; capture that date in the log at the point of acknowledgement.
3. Template the response. A house structure for the full response letter makes the eight-week deadline easier to hit consistently and keeps the tone even.
4. Review the log on a cycle. Fold the periodic log review into your existing clinical governance framework so it actually happens rather than being remembered ad hoc.

How complaints fit the wider CMA package

The complaints process is one of several CMA remedies a practice operationalises together. It sits alongside published price lists, written estimates, prescription transparency and fee caps, and ownership disclosure. Sequencing them is what the CMA preparation timeline is for, and the CMA compliance self-assessment tool flags which remedies your practice still has open. Run as one workstream inside your governance cycle, the package stays manageable for an independent practice.

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This guide reflects the CMA's published guidance for veterinary businesses as of July 2026. It is general compliance information, not legal advice. The binding detail, including the exact implementation deadlines, will be set out in the CMA Orders. Verify the current position against the CMA's guidance for veterinary businesses and consult your defence body for practice-specific advice.