PDSA vs Blue Cross — animal charity comparison
In short: PDSA: Veterinary care and pet-welfare education. Blue Cross: Animal welfare and responsible pet ownership. Match the work to your purpose, then compare dated accounts and evidence.
Data from Charity Commission register, last updated .
This comparison brings together registered purposes, source-checked interpretation and the accounts held by CharityCompare. The organisations may use different reporting periods and definitions. Read the source notes before comparing totals or treating a financial score as an assessment of programme results.
Key differences
| What to compare | THE PEOPLE'S DISPENSARY FOR SICK ANIMALS | BLUE CROSS |
|---|---|---|
| Registered work and operating model | Veterinary care and pet-welfare education. | Animal welfare and responsible pet ownership. |
| What to consider | Treatment visits, individual animals and owners supported are different denominators. The register activity text includes historical figures; they should not be presented as current-year results. | Its registered purpose covers animal welfare broadly. Compare specific care and rehoming programmes with equivalent services; a narrow rehoming-only description can omit other work. |
| Access and practical checks | Check the official eligibility and catchment information before seeking veterinary help. A register listing does not establish that a particular animal or household qualifies. | Use the official website to identify the service, animal type and locality. Ask about application criteria and current capacity. |
| Sourced result or evidence gap | No programme outcome has been source-checked for this profile. This is a gap in our coverage, not evidence of no impact. | No programme outcome has been source-checked for this profile. This is a gap in our coverage, not evidence of no impact. |
What the latest filings show
Figures from the accounts held in our dated dataset; the live register may contain newer filings. Ratios can span multiple years, as labelled. Clarity scores use our methodology.
| Metric | THE PEOPLE'S DISPENSARY FOR SICK ANIMALS | BLUE CROSS |
|---|---|---|
| Latest accounts year in our snapshot | 2024 | 2024 |
| Financial snapshot refreshed | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 |
| Ratio reporting window | 3-yr avg | 3-yr avg |
| Overall score | 86/100 (4★) | 87/100 (4★) |
| Accountability & Finance | 100/100 | 100/100 |
| Spend on charitable activities | 76% of expenditure | 72% of expenditure |
| Fundraising efficiency | £4.2 total income per £1 fundraising (2022–2024, disclosed years) | £3.7 total income per £1 fundraising (2022–2024, disclosed years) |
| Latest income | £129m | £51m |
| Fundraising spend | 24% of expenditure | 28% of expenditure |
| Reserves | 8 months | 14 months |
| Accounts filing | On time | On time |
| Data confidence | high | high |
| Charity number | 208217 | 224392 |
THE PEOPLE'S DISPENSARY FOR SICK ANIMALS on the register · BLUE CROSS on the register
Considering PDSA
- Veterinary care and pet-welfare education.
- Check the official eligibility and catchment information before seeking veterinary help. A register listing does not establish that a particular animal or household qualifies.
Considering Blue Cross
- Animal welfare and responsible pet ownership.
- Use the official website to identify the service, animal type and locality. Ask about application criteria and current capacity.
Common questions
PDSA or Blue Cross: which should I support?
There is no universal winner. Veterinary care and pet-welfare education. Animal welfare and responsible pet ownership. Check the programme that interests you, the accounts period and the evidence behind any result. A financial rating is not an impact assessment.
Can I compare the headline results directly?
Only if the definitions, population, geography and reporting periods match. Research expenditure, service contacts and lasting outcomes measure different things. The source notes explain any figures included here.
How we score charities +
The Clarity Score is a 100-point rating from UK regulator filings (Charity Commission for England and Wales, OSCR and CCNI). Four pillars — Accountability & Transparency (40), Financial Health (30), Financial Efficiency (20), and Community Support (10) — each scored on a continuous scale, not pass/fail cutoffs. A statutory inquiry sets the score to 0 automatically.
Accountability & Transparency
Scored from filings
40 points — filing history (15), trustee oversight (15, scaling up to a board of three or more), declared policies (10).
Financial Health
Scored from filings
30 points — reserves (15, full marks 3–24 months, tapering on both sides), income stability (10), liabilities to assets (5, scaling down as debt rises).
Financial Efficiency
Scored from filings
20 points — program expense ratio and fundraising cost, each on a graduated scale (not a single cutoff). Kept at 20% of the total: financial-ratio scoring alone is not a reliable effectiveness signal (see "why not just an overhead ratio?" below).
Community Support
Scored from filings
10 points — volunteer-to-staff ratio from Charity Commission workforce data, scaling continuously up to a 2:1 ratio.
Overall score
Sum of all pillar points. Display stars use the same bands as the labels: 90–100 → 5★ Exceptional; 75–89 → 4★ Good; 60–74 → 3★ Needs improvement; 1–59 → 2★ Poor; 0 → not rated.