RCVS Knowledge’s November 2025 roadmap argues that good veterinary care must fit the individual animal, owner and circumstances—not just follow one standard treatment path. Its practical lesson is that this takes more than a clinician’s judgment: education, practice systems, leadership, research and owner support all influence whether teams can offer and discuss appropriate options. The roadmap is a set of evidence-informed recommendations, not proof that they have been implemented or that each will improve outcomes.
What contextualised care means
RCVS Knowledge defines contextualised care as veterinary care adapted to the needs and circumstances of the individual animal, owner and wider context. It describes care as a partnership between caregivers and the veterinary team, working for the animal patient’s quality of life.
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That context can include the animal’s age, temperament, health conditions and relationship with the owner; the owner’s preferences, finances and available support; and the team’s skills, workload and resources. Practice facilities and staffing, the consultation’s setting, medicine availability, regulation, society, sustainability and public health can also matter. This is broader than tailoring treatment to a budget.
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Contextualising care does not mean setting evidence aside or automatically choosing the least expensive option. Evidence-based practice combines the best relevant evidence and clinical expertise with the circumstances of the patient and owner. The roadmap questions whether one “gold standard” pathway fits every case and calls instead for a spectrum of evidence-based options, with appropriate adjustments when the situation warrants them.
One veterinary surgeon interviewed for the roadmap described the practical details this can involve: “Contextualised care to me is delivering veterinary medicine that takes into consideration all aspects of the client’s needs, the owner’s needs, things like finances but also things like how tolerant the patient is to daily medications, whether they travel well, how able the owner is to administer medications.”
What the 2025 project examined—and what its figures mean
RCVS Knowledge and Kaleidoscope Health and Care published the report and roadmap in November 2025, with support for the research from Battersea’s grants programme. The mixed-methods project focused on UK small-animal veterinary practice and cat and dog owners. More than 1,000 veterinary team members and pet owners contributed to the research, and 70 sector leaders and pet owners provided input to the roadmap. The findings should not be treated as representative of every species or veterinary setting.
- Agreement with the idea: 92% of veterinary professionals surveyed agreed or strongly agreed with the RCVS Knowledge definition of contextualised care.
- Reported barriers: 45% of veterinary professionals and 45% of pet owners said they faced very few barriers to providing or receiving contextualised care. The roadmap also reports that most professionals and owners experienced barriers, so the 45% figures do not mean barriers are rare.
- Perceived policy needs: 57% of veterinary professionals surveyed thought some policy or regulatory changes were needed. Comments focused particularly on veterinary-medicine regulation and affordability; this is a reported perception, not proof that a particular change is necessary.
These figures and themes come from RCVS Knowledge’s 2025 research. They describe what participants reported, rather than establishing how every practice or owner experiences care.
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The project describes pressures on both sides of the consultation. Veterinary team members reported challenges that included limited continuity, difficulty discussing costs, expectations around intensive “gold standard” approaches, standardised protocols and financial targets, and fear of complaints, scrutiny or clinical failure. Owners described making emotionally difficult decisions when an animal is unwell, feeling guilty if they cannot afford every option, worrying about being judged, and wanting clearer information about costs and likely outcomes.
Participants also described communication gaps: clinicians may find it difficult to gauge an owner’s understanding, while owners may feel their needs have been overlooked. These accounts help explain why a suitable plan depends not only on the available treatment but also on whether the team and owner can discuss, understand and carry it out.
The roadmap identifies possible benefits such as greater trust and quality of care, and potentially less rehoming. For veterinary teams, it anticipates benefits including more openness and support, sustainable practice operations, greater job satisfaction and reduced burnout. These are anticipated or reported benefits in the project’s context, not effects the roadmap has proven to cause.
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The roadmap’s five areas for action
RCVS Knowledge groups its recommendations into five areas. They range from changing how the profession talks about care to improving the systems and information that shape decisions.
| Area | Who can act | What the roadmap recommends |
|---|---|---|
| Professional leadership | Professional bodies and sector leaders | Communicate that warranted adaptation is compatible with professional expectations; share examples of good contextualised care; and question language that implies one universal “gold standard.” |
| Veterinary education | Educators, CPD providers and the RCVS | Teach a range of evidence-based options, adaptation of diagnosis and treatment, communication and people skills, quality-of-life discussions, conversations about money and value, and decision-making under uncertainty. |
| Practice support | Practice leaders and veterinary teams | Support team learning and psychological safety, gather owner feedback, improve continuity, and review policies, protocols and measures that may constrain appropriate decisions. Examples include better information flow and, where possible and appropriate, scheduling with the same team member. |
| Evidence and research | Researchers, practices and funders | Encourage practice-based research, audits and registries; build comparative outcome evidence for diagnostic and treatment pathways; and develop evidence-based tools for shared decisions that account for animal quality of life and client burden. |
| Pet-owner empowerment | Owner-facing organisations and veterinary teams | Provide transparent prices and likely outcomes, written information after consultations, trusted resources comparing options, and support for decisions about quality of life and caregiver burden without guilt. |
The recommendations operate at different levels. A team can improve an individual conversation, a practice can change its continuity or information systems, and sector organisations can influence education, professional expectations and evidence. The roadmap assigns proposed short-, medium- and long-term or ongoing timeframes and identifies potential actors; those assignments do not confirm that the actions have been delivered.
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What veterinary teams and owners can take from it now
For veterinary teams
- Ask what matters to the owner and what the animal can realistically tolerate, alongside the clinical facts.
- Explain the relevant options, expected outcomes, costs and burdens in a way that invites questions rather than treating a single pathway as the only legitimate choice.
- Check what the owner has understood and what support they may need to follow a plan.
- Use team discussion and review of practice processes to identify policies or communication gaps that could limit appropriate care.
RCVS Knowledge provides a two-page conversation guide for veterinary teams to support discussion of diagnosis and the help an owner may need when choosing treatment options.
For pet owners
- Tell the veterinary team about practical constraints as well as your goals for your pet, including medication difficulties, travel, time and finances.
- Ask what each option is intended to achieve, what the likely outcomes and costs are, and what care at home may involve.
- Say if information is unclear or if you need time or support to decide. A plan should account for your pet’s welfare and what you can manage.
RCVS Knowledge also provides pre-consultation and wellbeing resources for pet owners.
What the roadmap does—and does not—establish
The roadmap offers a framework for making contextualised care more achievable across the veterinary system. It is grounded in a UK small-animal project and participant input, but the report says detailed evidence on how best to deliver contextualised care remains limited. Its recommendations are evidence-informed proposals, not comparative proof that every suggested action improves outcomes.
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Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →An RVN survey respondent captured the ambition this way: “Contextualised care shouldn’t be considered as something new. It’s what we should have been doing all along, unfortunately we lost our way.” The roadmap’s contribution is to make that ambition more concrete: align clinical judgment and evidence with the realities of each animal, owner and care setting, and improve the conditions that make those decisions possible.
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