Your vet is the person to ask about a medicine for your own animal.

How vet medicines are licensed and prescribed in the UK

A medicine for animals needs a licence before a company can sell it in the UK, with a few exceptions.

The Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) handles those licences. Defra runs it as an executive agency. Its work includes assessing applications to sell veterinary medicines, controlling their manufacture and distribution, and acting on reports of adverse events.

Licensing a medicine

A company needs a marketing authorisation from the VMD before it can place a veterinary medicine on the market in the UK, the VMD says. GOV.UK explains why. Veterinary medicines are licensed to make sure they are safe and effective for specific animals.

Each licence covers particular conditions in particular species. The details sit in the medicine's Summary of Product Characteristics, which the VMD keeps on its product information database.

Great Britain and Northern Ireland have separate rules. In Great Britain the Veterinary Medicines Regulations 2013 apply, and a medicine with a GB authorisation is approved for England, Wales and Scotland. Under the Windsor Framework, the UK and EU agreement on Northern Ireland, EU law on veterinary medicines applies in Northern Ireland.

Anyone can look a medicine up on the VMD's product information database. It shows whether a medicine is licensed now, or has been removed from sale.

A separate route for some small pets

Some medicines for small pets don't need a marketing authorisation. The VMD calls this the Schedule 6 exemption, and it covers animals kept only as pets and not for food.

The VMD lists the species as aquarium fish, cage and aviary birds, homing pigeons, terrarium animals such as reptiles and amphibians, small rodents, ferrets and rabbits. Chickens, ducks and turkeys never count, because the VMD classes them as food producing animals.

The exemption has its own limits. It excludes antibiotics, and any treatment that needs a precise diagnosis by a vet. Exempt medicines can only be given by mouth or on the skin, and companies must register them with the VMD before selling them.

Who can prescribe what

Three kinds of professional can prescribe or supply veterinary medicines. They are vets, pharmacists and suitably qualified persons (SQPs), and the VMD calls them registered qualified persons. Each can only handle the kinds of medicine they are qualified and registered for.

Every authorised medicine carries a distribution category, which sets who may prescribe and supply it:

A vet needs registration with the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) to prescribe anything other than AVM-GSL medicines. The vet must also supply from premises the RCVS has registered.

An SQP is registered for particular kinds of animal. The VMD gives an example. An SQP registered in companion animals may only supply companion animal products.

When no licensed medicine fits: the cascade

Sometimes no medicine is licensed for the animal's species and condition. The VMD then lets the vet use their clinical judgement to choose another medicine, in a set order of steps called the cascade. Its purpose, in the VMD's words, is to avoid unacceptable suffering.

The steps differ between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In both, a medicine licensed for the right species and condition comes first.

The RCVS sets out what the owner should be told. Owners should be made aware that an unauthorised medicine will be used and given a clear idea of possible side effects, and their consent should be in writing. For exotic species, the RCVS notes that most medicines used are unlikely to be authorised in the UK, so owners should know and consent from the start.

After a medicine is on sale

The VMD keeps watching medicines once they are in use. An owner can report a suspected reaction or side effect, which GOV.UK calls an adverse event, through the VMD's reporting service.

A report counts even when the owner isn't sure the medicine caused the problem.

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