Miguel A Arranz, Veterinary Manager (Animal Welfare, Consulting and Food Safety)

Can you describe the role Veterinary Public Health (VPH) veterinarians play in supporting the UK food sector?

Veterinary Public Health (VPH) veterinary surgeons and the teams they lead play the most crucial part in the farm to fork structure from disease control, animal welfare and consumer protection, both internally and when protecting our borders, but also when being the assurance needed for our Great British food to be able to compete in a worldwide open market.

The £2bn market value of meat exports alone is wholly reliant on their work. Quite simply, without them, we could not export meat and other products of animal origin.

• VPH Official Veterinarians (OVs) are deployed in abattoirs to inspect the health and welfare of all farmed animals destined for food
• The UK is considered to be at the highest standard in terms of animal welfare at slaughter across the world; those standards and regulations are essentially maintained by VPH OVs.
• In addition, VPH OVs, through the vet-led team, represent the first line of defence for public health not only inspecting and reporting on every piece of meat consumed in the UK for visible zoonotic diseases, but also controlling the conditions in which that meat is produced and stored in primary production to include the protection against non-visible zoonoses etc.

What are the potential impacts of the shortage of VPH vets?

Currently the very apparent lack of veterinary surgeons is proving challenging when attempting to provide a high-quality service in some veterinary fields and in some cases, like VPH, exports and imports and government veterinary fields, a service at all.

One of the ways we could manage that resource crisis, or at least mitigate it, is to fully regulate the work those paraprofessionals (such as veterinary nurses and vet technicians) working alongside veterinary surgeons, which form part of the vet-lead teams. Providing enhanced role descriptions, qualifications and continuing development to those paraprofessionals will certainly allow for further confident delegation of tasks to those with robust and clear lines between roles.

The assistance provided by those paraprofessionals will lead to veterinarians focusing on the crucial parts of their jobs, enabling not only a higher added-value implementation of their tasks but also improving retention and diversification of veterinary roles, leading to increased utilisation of existing resources and opening avenues to improve recruitment.

Why do you think the Veterinary Surgeons Act needs to be replaced?

The role of the VPH veterinary surgeons has been overhauled in the UK since the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 came into force, from almost non-existent to being the key for meat trade and standards. In my opinion legislative framework provided by Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 is no longer fit for purpose for the 21st century veterinary professions and I truly encourage the public, the profession, and ultimately members of Parliament to support the proposed root-and-branch review of the legislation which governs the veterinary professions.

Sion Rowlands MRCVS, Head of Veterinary Careers and Education at APHA

Can you describe the role that veterinary surgeons play in the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA)?

APHA is a government agency that sits within DEFRA. We work to safeguard animal health for the benefit of people, the environment and the economy. Our key responsibilities and priorities include:

• Identifying and controlling endemic and exotic diseases in animals and surveillance of new and emerging threats including zoonotic diseases.
• Scientific research in areas such as bacterial, viral, prion and parasitic diseases and vaccines and food safety.
• Running our international reference laboratory for many farm animal diseases
• Facilitating international trade in animals and products of animal origin.
• Regulating the safe disposal of animal by-products to reduce the risk of potentially dangerous substances entering the food chain.
• Monitoring and regulating standards of livestock health and welfare.
• Providing science-based evidence and advice to inform policy makers.

There is no better indication of the critical need and the importance of our work at APHA than now, with the continued response to the UK’s largest every Avian Influenza outbreak.

Why do you think the Veterinary Surgeons Act needs to be replaced?

There have been several changes in the veterinary landscape in recent years. Whilst there is a fundamental need to continue to protect the principal features of a veterinary surgeon’s role, there is also an important need to embrace and realise the importance of a ‘vet led team’. I think it’s important to consider how further elements of animal health work can be delivered by paraprofessionals - trained colleagues who are not veterinary surgeons but can add significant value.

The Veterinary Surgeons Act (1966) is considered archaic. The profession, the country and all those impacted by the work of veterinary surgeons, in some way, need a more contemporary and flexible primary legislation that supports the veterinary professions today and in the future.