About us
Source: gov.uk (2025-04-23)

The Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) protects animal health, public health and the environment.

We promote animal health and welfare by assuring the safety, quality and efficacy of veterinary medicines.

Who we are

As an executive agency of the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) we contribute to their objectives to protect public health and meet high standards of animal welfare. Our work also helps the Food Standards Agency to protect and improve the safety of food people eat.

Around 213 people, a mixture of scientific and administrative staff, are based at our offices near Addlestone, Surrey.

Organisation team organogram (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67bdd69fb0d253f92e213c5e/Organogram_Feb_2025.pdf) (PDF, 890 KB, 1 page)

Our responsibilities

We’re responsible for:
- monitoring and acting on reports of adverse events from veterinary medicines
- testing for residues of veterinary medicines or illegal substances in animals and animal products
- assessing applications for and authorising companies to sell veterinary medicines
- controlling how veterinary medicines are made and distributed
- advising government ministers on developing veterinary medicines policy and putting it into action
- making, updating and enforcing the Veterinary Medicines Regulations
Our priorities

Our Corporate Priorities (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vmd-corporate-priorities-2025-2026) include:
- Our people
- Policy making and delivery
- Regulatory service
- Global influence and recognition
- Corporate Services
VMD values

We have developed six organisational values to align our mission statement with our daily operations, ensuring consistency and integrity in our work. By working in accordance with our values we aim to foster a cohesive culture, improve decision-making, and enhance stakeholder trust.

Our Values
- Respect: Respect is at the core of all our interactions, we treat everyone with dignity and value diversity and expect to be respected in the same way
- Collaboration: We are collaborative in our work, leveraging the collective expertise and creativity of our teams and stakeholders
- Innovation: We embrace change and continuously seek new ways to improve and innovate
- Pragmatism: We approach challenges with a pragmatic mindset, focusing on solutions that are both effective and efficient
- Robustness: We make robust decisions based on rigorous evidence and develop processes that withstand challenge
- Excellence: We strive for excellence in everything we do, continuously pushing the boundaries of what is possible
Published standards

For 2025/2026, the Published Standards (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/published-standards-for-regulatory-work-202526) for our regulatory work relate to the VMD Corporate Priorities 2025 - 2026 - GOV.UK (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vmd-corporate-priorities-2025-2026) and a number of business priorities from our key performance indicators and deliverables.

ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certification

The VMD is certified as meeting the international standards for quality management and information security, respectively – ISO 9001 and ISO 27001.

This certification provides independent, external assurance that our systems and processes are effective in delivering our published standards and targets and helping us continue to improve as an organisation.

Our Quality Policy seeks to continually improve the quality of the service that we provide to our customers and stakeholders in a proportionate and cost-effective way. This level of quality is achieved through adoption of a system of procedures that reflect our competence to existing customers, stakeholders and independent auditing authorities. We aim to meet or exceed our targets agreed with Ministers and to retain and enhance our reputation as one of the foremost veterinary medicines regulatory agencies.

Service standards

This document details the service standards (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vmd-service-standards) users of our services and other stakeholders can expect from us. It also explains what you can do if you feel that we have not met these standards.

Regulator’s Code

How we meet the Regulator’s Code (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/veterinary-medicines-directorate-regulators-code/how-the-veterinary-medicines-directorate-meets-the-regulators-code)

Welsh language

We are committed to providing a responsive and efficient, high-quality service that is valued by our stakeholders. We are digital by default which means all our communications and content can be used with language and other digital accessibility tools.

For text that we generate, we use a scoring system to identify objectively when information should be available as separate Welsh and English versions or as bilingual documents. Information provided to us by another organisation is not considered for Welsh language translation.

We will, on request, provide our written correspondence in both Welsh and English, but this may exclude attachments or published material, which is subject to our scoring system.

To request a Welsh language translation, or for a copy of our scoring system, email xxx@xxx.xx (mailto:xxx@xxx.xx).