Data Sources
Who Owns Your Vet? aggregates data from multiple trusted sources to provide accurate information about veterinary practices across the UK. We believe in transparency about where our data comes from.
RCVS
The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) maintains the official register of veterinary practices in the UK. This is our primary source for practice listings.
Visit RCVSThe practices' own websites
CMA rules require practices to disclose corporate ownership on their own websites. We scan each practice's site for ownership disclosures, stated independence and registered company numbers.
A practice's own published statement about who owns it is first-party evidence, and each page's "how we know" line states what it told us — with a link to the site so you can read it yourself.
Postcodes.io
Postcodes.io is a free, open-source API for UK postcode lookups. We use it to geocode practice addresses, enabling our distance-based search and map features.
The service is powered by Ordnance Survey Open Data and provides accurate coordinates for UK postcodes.
Visit Postcodes.ioCompanies House
Companies House is the UK's registrar of companies. When a practice's own website names its registered company number, we use the public API to check the persons with significant control (PSC) on file for that exact company — no fuzzy name matching.
A corporate controller on the register links the practice to its parent group; individual people as controllers are register-backed evidence of independent ownership. Practice pages verified this way say so in their "how we know" line.
Visit Companies HouseCharity registers
Some veterinary practices are run by charities and non-profits rather than companies. We check the UK charity registers — the Charity Commission for England & Wales, OSCR in Scotland, and the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland — to confirm non-profit ownership against the official charity number on record.
A match on the register is what lets us mark a practice as non-profit with confidence. Practice pages verified this way name the charity number in their "how we know" line, with a link you can check yourself.
Visit the Charity Commission registerHow We Classify Ownership
Every practice record carries an audit trail of how its ownership was determined — the full detection order, verification tiers, freshness rules and review workflow are documented on the methodology page. In short, there are three tiers of evidence, and each practice page states which applies:
- Positive signal — the practice's own website discloses its owner or describes itself as independent, it trades under a known corporate brand, or a person has manually verified the ownership. These classifications are stated as fact, with the evidence shown on the practice page.
- Awaiting re-verification — the record was classified before our current evidence standard was in place, or rests on a signal that no longer meets it. The ownership stands while we re-verify against primary sources, and the practice page says so.
- No corporate link found — we searched for corporate ownership signals and found none. These practices are listed as independent, but the page says exactly that — "no corporate owner found" — rather than claiming verified independence.
Data Freshness & Verification
These figures are drawn directly from our live dataset and kept up to date — they are real counts, not estimates.
Most recent verification: 28 July 2026. Oldest record: 15 December 2024. A further 1,035 corporate and non-profit records were classified before our current evidence standard was in place; their ownership stands while we re-verify them against primary sources.
Data Accuracy
We strive for accuracy but veterinary practice ownership can change frequently. Every practice page shows when its record was last verified and flags records more than a year old. If you notice any errors or outdated information, please let us know.
Open Data Philosophy
Who Owns Your Vet? is committed to transparency. We believe pet owners have a right to know who owns their veterinary practice. By aggregating publicly available data and presenting it in an accessible format, we hope to bring greater transparency to the veterinary services market.
All our data sources are either publicly available or community-contributed. We are grateful to the organisations and volunteers who make this information accessible.