Medivet Slavery and Human Trafficking Statement
The Modern Slavery Act 2015 as amended tackles the serious and brutal crime of slavery. Modern slavery includes slavery, servitude, human trafficking and forced labour. The victims of modern slavery come from all walks of life and can be found all over the globe. Medivet has a zero tolerance approach to any form of modern slavery.
We strictly prohibit the use of forced labour, child labour, any form of human trafficking and any other form of modern slavery. We are committed to upholding fundamental human rights and promoting ethical business practices. We expect the same high standards from all of our contractors, suppliers and other business partners, both in the primary value chain (suppliers of the goods we sell) and the secondary value chain (suppliers of activities such as catering and cleaning). We expect that our contractors, suppliers and other business partners will hold their own contractors, suppliers and other business partners to the same high standards.
Our organisational structure and business
Medivet is a leading veterinary group and is a limited liability company registered in England and Wales (registered number 03481736). The Medivet group includes a number of subsidiaries and separately constituted legal entities which Medivet ultimately controls. We offer veterinary services in practises located throughout the UK, Spain, France and Germany, based on a unique hub and spoke system, providing an extensive range of services to our customers focused on the care of their pets 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Our Support Centre is in Watford, UK. We have over 3000 colleagues employed in our business throughout the UK.
Purpose of this Statement
This Statement sets out the steps which the Medivet group has taken, and is taking, with the objective of ensuring that modern slavery is not taking place in our supply chain or our own business.
Our supply chain and our procurement function
Our procurement function is responsible for the purchasing of goods and services that support the operations of our business including within our practices.
These include medical consumables and equipment, animal drugs and feeds, office supplies, marketing materials, IT hardware and software, services such as cleaning, waste management, refurbishments and maintenance, uniforms and catering, hospitality services such as hotels for conferences and training events, vehicles, accommodation, security systems and couriers as well as recruitment agents and temporary staff provision.
We also purchase certain professional services which include those delivered by medical professionals and financial advisors and procure insurance through insurance brokers.
Our policies
We operate a number of internal policies to ensure that we are conducting business in an ethical and transparent manner, including the following:
- We have an Anti-Slavery Policy. This policy sets out the organisation’s stance on modern slavery and explains how employees can identify any instances of this and where they can go for help.
- We operate a robust recruitment policy, including checks for eligibility to work in the UK.
- We operate a Whistleblowing Policy so that all employees know that they can raise concerns about how they or colleagues are being treated, or on practices within our business or supply chain, without fear of reprisals.
Our Anti-Slavery Policy reflects our commitment to acting ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships and to implementing and enforcing effective systems and controls with the objective of ensuring that modern slavery is not taking place anywhere in our supply chains or in any part of our business.
We regularly review the above policies.
Due diligence - employees
We take great care in our employee sourcing and recruitment processes with the aim of mitigating the risk of modern slavery in the labour supply chain.
Our employment strategy is based on attracting, developing and retaining the best talent and building the best place to work in the veterinary industry. We recognise everyone is unique and has special contributions to make in delivering our purpose which is to provide exceptional care that’s always there.
Colleague engagement is at the heart of our approach and we want to inspire and empower our people to use their talents positively in our communities, whether that be locally, regionally, nationally or ultimately at a global level. Our recruitment and employment procedures include appropriate pre-employment screening of all colleagues to determine right to work in the UK.
Due diligence - suppliers
We take great care to mitigate the risk of modern slavery in our supply chains.
Medivet operates a supplier policy and maintains a preferred supplier list. We conduct due diligence on our suppliers before allowing them to become a preferred supplier, including requesting copies of their modern slavery policies.
As part of our due diligence process:
- For suppliers with UK operations, we ask for confirmation from them that they pay their employees at least the national minimum wage and national living wage (as applicable); and
- For suppliers with international operations, we ask for confirmation from them that they pay their employees any prevailing minimum wage applicable within their countries of operation.
Risk identification, assessment, management and evaluation
Senior management oversees compliance matters and risk management, and instructs and mandates our legal, people and procurement teams to focus on compliance matters and risk management.
As part of our initiative to address modern slavery risk we have in place systems to identify and assess potential modern slavery risk areas in our supply chains and in our business. These include the following:
- We apply a matrix in relation to potential business risks through which we assess the likelihood of those potential risks, and the potential severity were they to eventuate, and consider appropriate steps to be taken to mitigate the risks; and
- We have a policy in place to protect whistleblowers.
We monitor those potential risks, and evaluate whether the actions we have taken to identify, assess and mitigate those risks have been effective.
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This Statement is made pursuant to Section 54 ('Transparency in supply chains') of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, as amended and constitutes our slavery and human trafficking statement for the financial year ending 30 April 2025. This Statement will be updated annually.
Neil Lake, CEO
on behalf of the Board of Directors
Medivet Group Limited
December 2025