Dechra has launched new Specific Heart & Kidney Support Hydrolysed wet and dry diets and updated its Specific Heart & Kidney Support wet and dry diets, giving veterinary teams another diet option for dogs and cats with kidney disease.

The new hydrolysed diet contains hydrolysed proteins, AuraGuard, fibres and Zeolite.

Dechra says the new formula featured in both diets offers superior palatability and works in a multi-action way with support of the gut-kidney axis to help optimise protein absorption and maintenance of muscle mass, gut barrier integrity and a healthy microbiome, while lowering uremic toxins in the blood.

The company says both diets control levels of protein, phosphorus and sodium and offer high levels of the Omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA.

Becky Morris, marketing manager at Dechra, said: "Chronic kidney disease is a lifelong progressive disease in dogs and cats, and nutrition is an important part of management to help slow disease progression, improve quality of life and reduce the risk of secondary complications.

"Our new and updated highly palatable Specific Heart & Kidney Support diets will help keep dogs and cats in good condition, prolonging the progression of the disease and the lifespan of the pet."

https://www.specific-diets.co.uk 

The BVA has unveiled its programme for BVA Live 2026, with sessions aimed at helping veterinary teams prepare for the reforms being introduced by the Competition and Markets Authority, at the NEC in Birmingham on 11-12 June.

Among the programme highlights is "Managing complaints post-CMA, what do you need to know?", featuring BVA President Rob Williams, Jennie Jones, Head of Veterinary Client Mediation Service, and Gavin Durston, Director of Thrums Vets.

In another session, "Hot topic: CMA remedies - what do they mean in practice?", Rob Williams, Kate Higgins, owner and Director of Village Vets Formby, and Lyndsay Hughes, BVNA Senior Vice President, will debate where we are with the investigation, what comes next, and the possible impact of the CMA remedies on practices. 

The programme also includes sessions on clinical practice, leadership in the workplace and the role of vets in ethical decision making.

Clinical stream highlights include euthanasia in small mammals, birds and reptiles, anaesthesia in comorbid patients, updates in ocular pharmacology, optimizing hospital care for long-term patients, and managing anxiety in "pandemic puppies".

The BVA Interactive Zone will also return, with President Rob Williams, Senior Vice President Elizabeth Mullineaux and Junior Vice President Gwen Rees leading debates on overtreatment, managing and improving a toxic workplace and contextualised care.

Rob said: "As the profession emerges from the CMA investigation, BVA Live will be one of the first opportunities for vet teams to come together to access practical CPD to move forwards and comply with the CMA remedies."

https://bvalive.vetshow.com/conference-programme 

The BSAVA has launched a new strategic plan which sets out how it will strengthen its support for small animal veterinary professionals.

The plan includes a redesigned digital experience to give members access to BSAVA clinical resources and the launch of LUMOS, which is billed as a new, modern, flexible CPD programme and platform.

The Association is also developing its AI-powered search tool call Rover, which will help clinicians navigate BSAVA resources at the point of care, including the Formulary, Manuals and Library content.

A redesigned BSAVA mobile app is also in the pipeline, along with regional and digital community spaces to help members stay connected between events. 

Stacy Woodman, Interim CEO of the BSAVA, said: "The small animal veterinary profession is evolving rapidly, and the BSAVA must evolve with it.

"Our new strategy focuses on making knowledge, learning and professional support easier to access throughout a veterinary professional's career."

She added: "We're revitalising our simple but powerful premise of 'the profession supporting the profession' and are encouraging our members to share their views by taking part in our ongoing Membership Survey and helping to create a BSAVA for the future."

https://research.potentia-insight.co.uk/survey/selfserve/53b/2602105?list=1 

Ronda Vet, the locum booking app, has warned that HMRC rule changes due from 6 April 2026 could leave UK veterinary practices facing unpaid PAYE tax linked to locum providers.

The company said that from April 6, 2026, umbrella companies, along with the agencies or end clients using them, will become liable for unpaid PAYE tax.

Ronda.vet said that if an umbrella company fails to pay HMRC, the liability can be passed directly to the end client, the veterinary practice.

The company also said HMRC could potentially pursue the end client for unpaid tax without first exhausting recovery options against the non-compliant umbrella company or agency.

The new rules apply to any payments made to workers employed by an umbrella company on or after April 6.

Ronda.vet said that for veterinary practices there are two scenarios.

If a practice is using an agency, the recruiters will generally be liable first.

If the practice is contracting directly with an umbrella company, the liability falls squarely at their door.

Ibra Hernando, co founder of Ronda Vet said: "Many practices use umbrella companies without fully understanding where liability sits.

"From April, ignorance won't protect a practice from a significant unexpected tax bill if a provider further up the chain fails to pay HMRC.

"These changes are a bit of a wake-up call for the entire profession to know exactly how their locum staff are being paid."

www.ronda.vet

Veterinary organisations have broadly welcomed the Competition and Markets Authority’s final reforms for the sector, with responses from across the profession largely supportive of the package’s focus on transparency, consumer information and Veterinary Surgeons Act reform.

The main note of caution came from the RCVS, which said it had concerns about proposals around publishing anti-parasitic medicine prices and about recommended changes to the College’s governance structure.

The Society of Practising Veterinary Surgeons (SPVS) also warned the package would bring significant operational and commercial consequences for practices, echoing an earlier VetSurgeon.org analysis that suggested implementation could cost some practices several thousand pounds.

Elsewhere, the BVA, BVNA and BSAVA all backed the measures proposed by the CMA, and the PDSA welcomed the exemption for charities.

However, whilst greater transparency is undoubtedly a good thing, there are reasons to doubt how much difference some of the CMA’s measures will make in practice.

A price comparison website may make fees for commoditised services easier to compare, but it cannot capture the qualities that many owners actually choose a vet for: judgement, experience, bedside manner and clinical philosophy.

A tool that judges veterinary services primarily on price risks devaluing precisely those aspects of care.

The bigger difficulty is that the reforms focus mainly on transparency, not on the other underlying drivers of cost.

Veterinary medicine has become steadily more sophisticated and expensive, shaped by scientific progress, vets’ understandable desire to do the best possible for the patient in front of them, regulatory expectations, pet insurance, commercial pressures, and society’s changing tolerance of risk.

Until the profession is willing to confront the question of whether modern veterinary medicine is too often presenting clients with levels of investigation and treatment that they cannot afford, or that cost more than they believe it is right to spend on a pet animal, transparency measures alone will not make the controversy disappear. 

Without addressing that deeper issue, the negative headlines are unlikely to go away.

The Competition and Markets Authority has unveiled a package of veterinary transparency reforms that will require practices to publish prices, give written estimates and tighten complaints handling.

Although the regulator says the changes should impose only limited administrative costs, VetSurgeon.org estimates that implementation may still run to several thousand pounds for some practices.

Under the reforms, practices will need to:

• Update signage and marketing materials if part of a group to display the practice owner.
• Ensure marketing materials and signage clearly set out out-of-hours arrangements, staff qualifications and accreditations.
• Publish a standardised price list online and in-practice for consultations and a wide range of diagnostics, treatments and procedures defined by the CMA, for five standardised pet characteristic and weight categories.
• Publish prices for commonly sold flea, tick and worm products, plus a link to the VMD Register of online retailers, both online and in-practice.
• Publish full pet care plan details, including standalone prices and an explanation of any claimed cost savings.
• Submit practice information and pricing data to the RCVS for publication via an upgraded Find a Vet comparison platform.
• Provide written estimates for treatment pathways likely to cost £500 or more and update them if costs are likely to increase by 20% or £500.
• Provide itemised bills.
• Put written clinical freedom policies and processes in place.
• Give clients written information produced by the RCVS about prescriptions and buying medicines elsewhere, including via practice websites, posters and emails, and tell owners during consultations.
• Provide written prescriptions at the end of a consultation or digitally within 48 hours.
• When prescribing own-brand medicines, tell clients about the reference product alternative and identify it in writing.
• Provide additional information to owners receiving ongoing medication about their ability to request a written prescription and potential savings from buying medicines elsewhere.
• Check any out-of-hours contract to ensure notice periods do not exceed 12 months and no termination fee applies after that period.
• Offer a communal cremation service and publish clear information about cremation options and prices, including add-ons.
• Put a written complaints procedure in place, publish it and keep a complaint log.
• Take part in mediation in good faith when required.

In total, the CMA package introduces more than a dozen new operational requirements for veterinary practices.

Practices will also have to pay a new levy to the RCVS to fund its expanded role running the price comparison service, estimated at £450-£550 annually, after a £150-£250 setup charge.

Once the Order is made — currently expected in September 2026 — most of the transparency measures will need to be implemented within three months by larger veterinary groups and six months by smaller practices.

More operational changes, such as written estimates, itemised billing and the new prescription rules, follow later, with smaller practices typically given up to 12 months to comply.

The final stage will see practices submitting data to the RCVS for its upgraded Find a Vet comparison platform once the system has been built.

Prescription fees will be capped at £21 for the first medicine prescribed in a consultation and £12.50 for each additional medicine, with both figures rising annually in line with CPI, and practices will need to assess the impact on their business model.

A new study from the Royal Veterinary College has found that Cockapoos, Labradoodles, and Cavapoos in the UK often exhibit higher levels of undesirable behaviours compared to their purebred parent breeds, offering veterinary professionals an insight for client advice and management¹.

For the study, the team at the RVC conducted an online survey of the owners of 9,402 UK dogs to investigate the behaviour of three popular designer Doodle breeds – Cockapoo, Labradoodle and Cavapoo.

Behaviours were compared between the Doodles and their purebred parent breeds, including Cocker Spaniels; Cavalier King Charles Spaniels; Labrador Retrievers; and Toy, Miniature, and Standard Poodles.

Behaviour was assessed using the validated Canine Behavioural Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ) which quantifies diverse behavioural challenges including aggression, fear and anxiety, separation-related behaviour and attention-seeking.

The results show that designer Doodles differed from their purebred parents in approximately 54% of behavioural comparisons.

Where differences were identified, Doodles showed more undesirable behaviours in 82% of comparisons.

Some of these common undesirable behaviours included non-social fear (e.g. fear of traffic, loud noises); separation-related problems (e.g. vocalisation and destructiveness when left alone); and excitability (e.g. strong reactions to exciting events such as walks and doorbells).

Doodles showed less undesirable behaviours in only 18% of the comparisons where a difference was identified, for example Labradoodles scored lower for dog rivalry (e.g., conflict with dogs they live with) compared to Poodles.

Considerable variation between the three individual Doodle breeds was also identified, demonstrating that designer crossbreeds should not be treated as a single, uniform group in terms of behaviour.

For example, Cockapoos displayed a higher level of undesirable behaviours compared to their purebred parent breeds, exceeding that seen in Cavapoos and Labradoodles.

In particular, Cockapoos showed higher levels of aggressive behaviours, such as owner-directed aggression and dog rivalry, than their purebred parents.

Dr Rowena Packer, Senior Lecturer in Companion Animal Behaviour and Welfare Science at the RVC and senior author of the paper, said: “Realistic expectations are key to happy dog ownership.

"When expectations and reality don’t align, both dogs and owners can struggle.

"Preconceived beliefs, such as the idea that designer-crossbreeds are naturally easy to train or are safe with children, can have serious consequences if they aren’t supported by evidence.

"Our research shows that many designer-crossbreeds do not always behave as expected, particularly regarding training, anxiety and aggression, which were more common than in their parent breeds.

"We also found that not all ‘Doodles’ are alike, with Cockapoos tending to display more undesirable behaviour compared to Labradoodles and Cavapoos, highlighting that each breed is unique.

"By providing reliable scientific data, we can help puppy buyers to make better-informed choices that support both human wellbeing and canine welfare.”

Reference

1. Bryson GT, O'Neill DG, Belshaw Z, Brand CL, Packer RMA (2026) Comparing undesirable behaviours between ‘designer’ Poodle-cross dogs and their purebred progenitor breeds. PLoS One 21(2): e0342847. The full paper is available from PLOS ONE and can be accessed at: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0342847 

Dozens of independent veterinary practices across the UK still face uncertainty over their health plans following IVC Evidensia's wordmark claims for 'Pet Health Club', according to We Are Spartacus, a campaign group formed to fight the claims. 

IVC started writing to the practices at the start of last year, threatening legal action over their use of the term 'Pet Health Club', which the company says infringes its trademark rights.

In March 2025, IVC sent follow-up letters to affected practices, offering an extension until 31st December 2025 to comply with its demands, but according to We Are Spartacus, there has been no contact since the deadline passed.

Meanwhile, We Are Spartacus reports that 200 veterinary professionals have registered their opposition to IVC's claims via its website.

Dr Natalie Morris-Webb, owner of Malthouse Vets, one of the affected practices, said: “Last year was a worrying time for lots of independent practices with a ‘Pet Health Club.’

"Many of those that came forward had been using the term long before IVC registered its wordmark in 2019 and either had to face the cost and hassle of rebranding their health plans or enter into a legal dispute with IVC.

“Neither of these are appealing options for independent practices, or their owner managers.

"Although IVC appears to have ceased defending the ‘pet health club’ wordmark, with none of the affected practices reporting any further correspondence for many months, the uncertainty is still there.

"It’s unacceptable that IVC has not yet achieved a commercial settlement, or revealed whether they have given the industry a reprieve and no longer plan to take legal action.”

An IVC Evidensia spokesperson said: "We have no current plans to approach anyone we haven’t previously contacted on this matter, but of course, we reserve the rights available to the company, as trademark holder, to protect our trademarks and customers in the future, as in any sector."

"A material number of those previously infringing our trademark have now updated their branding.

"Anyone still in breach was given clear notification, so the position is unambiguous - they are required to update."

The Pet Health Club website does not currently state that the scheme is owned by IVC Evidensia.

www.wearespartacus.co.uk

The Lynwood School of Veterinary Nursing has launched a 12-week Advanced Animal Nursing Assistant qualification to improve the skills of veterinary care assistants and enhance practice efficiency.

The course, which is a combination of online learning and practical tasks, is designed for veterinary care assistants who have already achieved their Level 2 certificate.

The school, which is part of VetPartners but also welcomes students from outside the group, delivers training to apprentices studying for the Level 2 Animal Care and Welfare Certificate and Level 3 Diploma in Veterinary Nursing.

Launched in 1996 with one class of six trainees, Lynwood now supports 120 apprentices from veterinary practices across five counties and claims to have helped more than 1,500 students pass their exams. 

Val Belbin, joint head of the school, said: "We are hugely proud of everything the school has achieved over the past three decades and are delighted to be offering this new training opportunity to veterinary nursing assistants.”

https://www.lsvn.co.uk 

The BSAVA has awarded Lyndsay Hughes the BSAVA Veterinary Nurse Award, recognising her leadership role in practice and representation of veterinary nurses across the UK.

Lyndsay is a Small Animal Director at Drove Veterinary Hospital in Wiltshire and served as BVNA President from 2023 to 2025, during which time she played a pivotal role representing the association and veterinary nurses across the UK with dedication, professionalism, and unwavering commitment

She is the only veterinary nurse on the hospital board at Drove, contributing to strategic decision-making, clinical governance, operational development and team progression.

The award was one of the BSAVA’s 2026 awards, which recognise contributions from across the veterinary profession.

BSAVA Honorary Secretary Adam Gow said: "Each of them has demonstrated remarkable dedication to the veterinary profession, and we’re proud to recognise the positive impact they make on animals, clients, and colleagues every day."

Veterinary ophthalmologist, Richard Everson has joined South East Veterinary Referrals (SEVR) as a director to provide specialist local eye care and surgery for cats and dogs, reducing the need for long-distance referrals in Kent and the South East.

Richard completed his specialist training at the Royal Veterinary College and remained there for a further year as a clinician before spending seven years gaining referral experience at a multi-disciplinary referral hospital in Surrey.

From the Sevenoaks hospital he provides ophthalmology services including cataract surgery, corneal ulcer management, treatment of feline corneal sequestra, tear film disorders such as keratoconjunctivitis sicca (KCS), and emergency ophthalmic cases.

South East Veterinary Referrals has installed a Zeiss operating microscope to support procedures including cataract removal, corneal ulcer repair and corneal transpositions.

Richard said: "Eye problems in dogs and cats can progress rapidly.

"Cataracts linked to diabetes, deep corneal ulcers, or trauma can threaten sight within days.

"Until now, many complex cases in Kent had to be referred many miles away.

"SEVR provides a seamless pathway for assessment and surgery, whilst ensuring pets return to their first referral vet for follow-up care when appropriate."

www.southeastvetreferrals.com

University of Nottingham researchers have reported a biological quirk in domestic cats that may help explain why they are so prone to chronic kidney disease.

For the study¹, which was led by Professor David Gardner and Dr Rebecca Brociek and published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science, researchers analysed opportunistically collected kidney samples from 58 domestic cats, seven domestic dogs, 24 Scottish wildcats and three zoo wildcats.

Using chemical analyses, the team discovered that cats accumulate a rare group of modified triglycerides, some with unusual chemical bonds or branched structures, that are very rarely observed in other mammals.

Dogs did not show this pattern at all, and the feral Scottish Wildcats showed it only occasionally. 

Dr Brociek said: "Why these types of unusual fats accumulate in domestic cat kidneys, even from an early age, may offer an important clue as to why domestic cats are particularly prone to chronic kidney disease, one of the most common and serious illnesses affecting older cats."

The researchers say that this distinctive lipid buildup inside kidney cells could be an early sign of long‑term stress within the kidney, potentially contributing to tissue damage over time.

Professor Gardner added: "We are hopeful that soon we will understand why these unusual fats accumulate in domestic cats - we just have to collect the evidence to find the proof.

"If true, we believe we could develop a supplement or modified diet to help prevent these unusual lipid structures from accumulating, ultimately benefitting the long-term health of our companion animals."

The discovery opens a new area of investigation into feline biology, suggesting that cats’ unique metabolism may predispose them to kidney problems. It could eventually lead to better diagnostic tools, improved diets, and new treatments for protecting cats' kidney health.

Reference

1. Brociek RA, Alborough R, Kotowska AM, Ferreira A, Martinez-Jarquin S, Walczak M, Di Bari V, Beaudoin F and Gardner DS (2026) Lipid droplets in felid kidneys: prevalence and composition by lipidomics. Front. Vet. Sci. 13:1711591. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2026.1711591

Langford Vets has opened applications for its 2026-2027 Veterinary Nursing Rotating Internship cohort for veterinary nurses, starting in August 2026, with applications closing on 12 March.

The one-year fixed-term programme pays £26,208 and is designed for newly-qualified nurses to develop day one and referral nursing skills.

Langford Vets recommends the programme for nurses up to 3 years qualified who want more experience in a referral setting.

Interns will rotate through departments including theatre, emergency and critical care, wards nursing and anaesthesia.

The role includes exposure to specialist areas of veterinary nursing in a high-volume referral setting.

Each intern will have mentorship from the Nursing Intern Lead and a designated career mentor.

The programme includes participation in specialised procedures, patient care and diagnostics.

Interns can choose one rotation, including oncology, cardiology, dermatology and physiotherapy.

Chloe Pilgrim, Nurse Intern Lead said: "This internship offers a chance to grow both professionally and personally."

https://www.langfordvets.co.uk/work-with-us/nursing-rotating-internship-2026-2027