Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
Monday 12 May 2003
MR ROGER
EDDY, MISS
JANE HERN
AND DR
BARRY JOHNSON
Q40 Mr Wiggin: Just to finish on
this, the one point you did not mention was the income of graduates
afterwards. Are the people looking after the small animals earning
more than the people who look after cattle? Is that one of the
reasons?
Mr Eddy: The BVA are best placed
to answer that but certainly in the city areas the small animal
practices seem to offer higher salaries than in rural mixed practices.
You earn a lot more as a new graduate in London or in Birmingham
than in west Wales or Lancashire, where I know they are very mean!
Q41 Mr Wiggin: The problem is then,
coming back to Heddon-on-the-Wall, that because farmers are going
to have to pay more to have large animal vets to service their
sector the price is going to get even higher, and we will see
more and more farmers retreating from using vets at all.
Mr Eddy: It is a vicious circle,
you are right. As practices contract and other practices travel
larger distances, it is going to cost more, yes.
Q42 Mr Wiggin: So how does the government
address this?
Mr Eddy: The government has to
address it because if they are really going to be successful with
their animal health and welfare strategy and their surveillance
strategy, which we all believe are very important issues for the
next 10 years, they will not work if there is not a private practice
infrastructure in the livestock areas, so it has to be addressed
and it is not helped by reports from the Competition Commission
which, if enacted to the full, will have an effect in reducing
the profitability of farm animal veterinary practice. You may
know that the College was opposed, when the Chief Veterinary Officer
came to us in the autumn, to lay TB testing which I believe your
Committee supported in the TB report. We are opposed to them at
the moment moving to lay TB testers—not because we are against
the use of para professionals—we have a distinct policy
on supporting increased use of para professionals under veterinary
direction—but the change to lay TB testing must be managed
through the veterinary practices because, if it goes straight
over to lay TB testers, again in these marginal livestock areas
the practices will just disappear. 50% of income in farm animal
practice in Northern Ireland, Scotland, parts of Wales and even
parts of England, is from LVI work so if that went to lay TB testing
then those practices would almost disappear.
Q43 Mr Drew: This is more of an observation
but I would hope you might just respond to this quickly; there
is this myth that there are less farmers out there in terms of
pure numbers because what has happened is we have seen the growth
of the hobby lifestyle farmer. Now, with the best will in the
world these are quite a serious concern because, as we know, anyone
can go and buy a sheep—they do not have to have any training
whatsoever and they can get, dare I say, some subsidy on that
sheep! My concern is, and I would welcome your quick response
to this, how you prepare people within the profession who are
largely going to be dealing with dogs, cats, budgerigars and so
on but who may possibly be brought in by someone with their smallholding
to deal with a sick sheep, given that there is this decline in
the large animal sector and that those people who are dealing
with that side of things are unlikely to be called in to deal
with these sick animals. There is a bit of a contradiction in
the way in which your profession is going but it has, if you like,
to face up to the reality of what is going on out there in whatever
world it is.
Mr Eddy: We are heading for two
types of livestock keeper. We have the professional, commercial,
livestock farmer, who is moving along the lines of health plans
and preventative medicine which needs to be developed and encouraged
so it is more widespread, but that does not take on board, as
you say, the hobby farmer—and there are thousands of them.
We addressed this in the Royal Society inquiry on infectious diseases
because we saw that these livestock keepers were equally at risk
of contracting an exotic disease. Look at all the pet pigs that
are kept, those Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, which we know are
being fed table scraps—in other words, uncooked swill. Swine
fever could develop in those animals and those people would not
know, so those are a real risk. This is why the Royal Society
came up with the recommendation, which we would support although
we would not support licensing, that all keepers of livestock—whether
it is pet goats, pet sheep, pet cows, pet pigs, whatever—should
be registered on a DEFRA database and they should have registered
the name of a veterinary surgeon and they should submit some form
of health plan at least once a year. Now that health plan does
not have to be as elaborate a health plan as you would expect
from a commercial farmer with 300 dairy cows and so on, but at
least there would be a contact, and that contact would educate
and help train these people to identify notifiable, infectious
diseases and what they should do about it if they see signs.
Dr Johnson: You asked what would
happen—well, what would simply happen is that the small
animal practice would refer them to a large animal practice, just
simply to have the equipment and expertise. Trying to handle a
100 kilo Vietnamese pot-bellied pig with a small black bag is
just not an option, so they would send for a vet from a large
animal practice to travel some distance in order to see it.
Q44 Mr Drew: The worry is if there
is a disease outbreak that is where the pressure of time—
Dr Johnson: I think some of us
have discovered, both in foot and mouth and going into other areas
to help the TB crisis, that there are enormous numbers of these
animals and there is no veterinary input into them whatsoever,
so we could have an emerging, notifiable disease developing and
nobody would have any idea until it developed into the larger
lifestyle units.
Q45 Mr Wiggin: Are you seriously
suggesting that the two chickens I have in my garden should be
registered? Is that what you want to see?
Mr Eddy: I am seriously suggesting
that certainly for animals that are foot and mouth and/or swine
fever susceptible. The chicken situation, probably not, because
the poultry industry being so integrated they can deal with most
of the notifiable diseases and exotic diseases within the confines
of the industry, and they say themselves they are not too concerned
about the backyard flocks. I have heard that said from the evidence
given by the Poultry Veterinary Association to the Royal Society
inquiry.
Q46 Chairman: I have never seen a
member of our Committee look so relieved!
Mr Eddy: Certainly the goat will
have to be registered!
Mr Wiggin: I have not got a goat!
Q47 Mr Lazarowicz: On that point,
I was interested in what you said about the numbers of animals,
livestock, being kept as pets. What kind of figures are we talking
about? Have you any idea at all?
Mr Eddy: I do not think anybody
knows. There was an anecdote that before foot and mouth one vet
in Essex said, or somebody counted, that there were 300 holdings
in Essex which had foot and mouth disease susceptible livestock
on which there was no veterinary input. DEFRA must have some data
on this from the Cumbria foot and mouth experience. I know they
came across large numbers of holdings with animals on with no
veterinary contact. Now, they must have the data in their system
somewhere, the foot and mouth database, and I think Dr Johnson
knows more about that.
Dr Johnson: Yes. It comes down
to what you call "pet". Do you call 20 sucklers pets?
Five sheep? One goat? Clearly these are not productive farms but
there are a lot of these small holdings which are a great worry
to us.
Q48 Paddy Tipping: One of the themes
of discussion today has been about promoting a wider animal health
strategy, a kind of change in focus. What is the College's view
on this, and what are you doing to promote that?
Mr Eddy: We have been very supportive
of the DEFRA move in the whole area of consultation on the animal
health and welfare strategy as well as the surveillance strategy,
and of course they should really be interlinked. Having developed
your animal health and welfare strategy then you attach your surveillance,
and perhaps they should be looking at the animal health and welfare
strategy first. But it is desperately important to develop that
and agree priorities, agree what needs to be dealt with, what
diseases perhaps can be left on the back burner, and how you are
going to deal with new incursions of exotic diseases because next
time it will not be foot and mouth. It could be West Nile Fever,
Blue Tongue—any amount of equine diseases—so we have
to have a strategy which is going to take into account the risks
from a whole range of developing new and emerging diseases, as
well as the endemic diseases. My model for dealing with endemic
diseases is that I believe that DEFRA should, through its surveillance
strategy, develop strategies for surveillance, for measuring the
incidence of a whole range of endemic diseases, and then talking
with the industry as to how one deals with those diseases. A number
of European countries now have eradicated infectious bovine rhinotracheitis
(IBR); BVD is being eradicated in a number of European countries;
leptospirosis has been tackled in some countries—many of
our partners in the Union are totally free of bovine TB—so
our track record on many diseases in cattle is not that good in
many respects in this country, and I believe that the role of
DEFRA is to identify the incidence and the prevalence and then
talk to the industry on financing—not publicly but how the
industry should finance—disease control or eradication,
if appropriate. If our European partners go down the line of eradicating
these highly infectious endemic diseases and we do not, then they
are going to use that as a barrier to trade.
Q49 Paddy Tipping: There is a lot
in that but let's pick up on a couple of points. We are being
told that in the more marginal areas the number of visits are
getting less and less. How can we have a national surveillance
strategy against that background? What is your prescription? What
should we be doing?
Mr Eddy: We have to ensure the
continuing maintenance of veterinary services in these marginal
areas, and we have addressed two or three issues there, and I
would hang my hat on the Royal Society recommendation which is
at consultation from DEFRA at the moment in the context of biosecurity,
and that is that all keepers of livestock should have some form
of health plan. That would be a start and would create a market
for health plans for those livestock keepers who are not commercial
farmers. If you have a health plan running at the moment, then
you would not need to be a part of that exercise. That would create
a demand and keep veterinary services in those areas.
Q50 Paddy Tipping: And the issue
then is how you fund that, because what you are saying to us is
by regulation you have a need for a health plan. Would it be the
keeper—him or herself—paying, or is there a public
goods consideration here, that the public purse ought to be paying?
Mr Eddy: I do not think the College
has a view one way or the other. I could give you a personal view
which is that there is no reason, I believe, that the livestock
owner should not pick up the tab; it should be a part of his responsibility.
If you keep livestock, animals, you have a responsibility to look
after those animals and to do what is necessary—it does
not matter whether it is a dog or a cat or a cow or a herd of
cows. You have a responsibility to ensure optimum welfare, and
in terms of your other fellow keepers of livestock, your neighbours
and so on, you have a responsibility to be aware of the dangers
from infectious disease. So my personal belief is that the keeper
of the livestock should pick up the tab.
Q51 Paddy Tipping: If we move towards
the notion of an annual audit, to have a whole farm approach and
a method of support that is radically different—and all
these things are conceivable—some people would then say
perhaps the public purse ought to be picking up the tab.
Mr Eddy: You can take this on.
Another role is going to be the HACCP approach in the area of
food safety which is being talked about in the European Commission
at the moment and which I am sure you are aware of, moving some
of the controls and checks from the abattoir back to the farm—which
make sense because at the moment all sorts of material can go
into the abattoir by which time it may be too late. Now some of
that could be an argument on the one hand for public health and
public safety and therefore the tab should be picked up by the
public purse. I have heard a counter argument as well that it
is up to the supplier of the product to ensure that that product
is safe and fit to eat and so on, therefore it is their responsibility
to pick up that bill and to ensure its safety, and the College
would not have a view on who should pay for that and what should
happen.
Q52 Chairman: Picking up on the question
of who pays for what, the impression I have so far is that there
are plenty of vets around and if they are managed properly then
we can have the kind of surveillance system we want and health
plans we want, but if any of the elements we have talked about
in the animal disease chain go wrong, particularly in the large
animal sectors, the nation ends up by paying a very big bill.
It was £4 billion plus from foot and mouth. It is quite difficult
to get the balance in what you are saying as to whether what we
need is a better managed veterinary service. In those areas where
in the case of large animals it goes pear-shaped you have the
lack of fit between farmers who cannot afford to employ your services
but, on the other hand, if there is a disease outbreak it is the
public who pick up the tab. How do you resolve these two seemingly
irreconcilable positions?
Mr Eddy: It is important that
we do some analysis as to whether or not we killed far more animals
than we needed to in 2001. We have written to the Committee on
that issue, and I firmly believe that that does need to be investigated—that
if we had a similar outbreak, would we do the same and make the
same mistakes again? That is one issue. The other issue is that
on the 2001 outbreak, on 19 February when it was first picked
up in Essex the disease was already present on at least 57 farms
incubating away from Scotland to Cornwall and all the counties
between because of the market situation and because of a farmer
who had never had a vet on the premises, so some of the suggestions
we have been talking about, like some form of registration of
livestock keepers, some form of recognition, that they must have
a veterinary contact, hopefully would either drive some of these
keepers out of business, because I do not think they are supported
by the farming industry, or it might mean that one might be able
to get through to some of them that the veterinary contact is
a valuable aid and disease would be detected long before it was
spread across the country.
Q53 Chairman: Is our State Veterinary
Service the right size for the job it has to do?
Mr Eddy: The problem with the
State Veterinary Service's size is that in a national disease,
even if it is 16 outbreaks of swine fever in East Anglia which
stretched the State Service beyond its size at the time and they
had to call on help from the private sector, you cannot staff
the State Veterinary Service to cope with a foot and mouth outbreak
because for most of the last 34 years they have had nothing to
do, so you just cannot do that. But we were concerned at the Lebrecht
review on the State Veterinary Service seven or eight years ago
which reduced the number of divisional officers. There used to
be 73 regional divisional officers in the State Veterinary Service
15 years ago and at the beginning of foot and mouth there were
23. They are a very important level of management within the State
Veterinary Service, the divisional veterinary officer and the
local divisional veterinary managers. They closed a number of
divisional offices so the poor guy in the north of England in
Carlisle has to deal with all the farms in Cumbria, Northumberland
and County Durham, east coast to west coast—an impossible
task. In our part of the world, Somerset and Dorset have merged
and Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, so Gloucestershire has to deal
with farms down in Salisbury and East Wiltshire and so on. So
there are huge areas that they are asking these divisional managers
to manage, and I think with that you lose the local knowledge
and the local contact.
Q54 Chairman: Picking up on that,
there is a circular argument here. Earlier we heard evidence that
suggested that there was not enough large animal experience, enough
practice experience in the State Veterinary Service, and we have
just heard we need perhaps a different structure at divisional
office level and more of them. How do you start to manage those
key elements to ensure that, firstly, private practice has enough
people with the right experience in the vulnerable areas and,
secondly, that that experience gets passed into the State Veterinary
Service in such a way that you have a structure that when the
chips are down means it works properly?
Mr Eddy: The problem with the
last 15 years is the shortage of United Kingdom graduates, we
know that, and the State Veterinary Service has had the same problems
as private practice has had in recruiting. Whereas I think twenty
years ago the State Veterinary Service insisted upon experience
in practice before they would take them on, more recently they
have taken on relatively recently qualified graduates because
it was all that was available, if you like. I would suggest that
when we move into a situation which we are predicting over the
next five years or so of the graduate numbers and the demand of
people coming more into balance, some of these problems will be
resolved simply because of the increased numbers coming out of
the veterinary schools.
Q55 Chairman: Is the State Veterinary
Service an attractive or unattractive place? The State Veterinary
Service is not the resting place for vets who never made it in
private practice, is it?
Mr Eddy: You said that, Chairman!
Q56 Chairman: I ask the question
because I want to know. I give you an example: the Crown Prosecution
Service has often been criticised because it is said not to have
the same calibre of legal advice as, if you like, in private practice
so is there a parallel with the State Veterinary Service?
Mr Eddy: I think it is true to
say that historically the State Veterinary Service was seen to
be a resting place for those who had brucellosis and those who
could not make it in private practice. It was not totally made
up of these people: there are some very competent members of the
State Veterinary Service, particularly in the policy areas and
Weybridge and Tolworth as it then was and now in Page Street.
Interestingly, a comment from the Chief Veterinary Officer made
to us a few months ago—and I think the BVA made this point
earlier—was that following foot and mouth a number of people
who were working on foot and mouth realised in fact that epidemiology
and population—medicine, disease control—is quite
an interesting area of work, and the State Veterinary Service
are up to full complement at the moment—perhaps they need
to have more in terms of being allowed to have more but they are
up to full complement—and they have I am told recruited
some quite high calibre people who have come in because they have
realised that it could be an interesting area of work. Perhaps
you could say that is the problem of State Veterinary Service
in that it has not marketed itself before, but we needed a war
to recruit the soldiers so whether that will continue time will
only tell.
Q57 Chairman: Can we finally move
to the question of the Competition Commission inquiry into veterinary
medicines? The message I am getting from you is that their recommendations
could well harm the finances of the profession to the extent that
simply selling professional services to people with animals without
the back-up of being able to sell treatments and medicines, etc,
along with them could be the final nail in the coffin of things
like large animal services? Is that too overdramatic a summary
of the situation?
Dr Johnson: That sums it up, particularly
in marginal areas where the large animal people are in small practices
as opposed to the large areas we come from where the process of
drugs and supplying them at very competitive rates is the norm.
In the marginal areas it is more difficult for the one man large
animal practice buying small amounts—he can only supply
those and make a profit out of them, which subsidises going to
see the pot-bellied pig.
Q58 Chairman: But the NFU, who are
coming to give evidence in a minute after you, question this.
They welcome the Competition Commission's inquiry into this issue.
They like the idea of cheaper medicine because we started from
the point of view of livestock farmers who are not making any
money, so is it not a circular argument? If you have cheaper medicines,
you put a bob or two back in the farmers' pocket so they can pay
a bit more for your services?
Dr Johnson: Have you ever seen
farmers who do not want something cheaper?
Q59 Chairman: Well, we all want it
cheap but what is the best way of funding your service? Should
it be a question of being cross-subsidised from the sale of veterinary
medicines, or should we have profitable veterinary practices because
there is lots of work and profitable farms because they are getting
it at good value for money?
Dr Johnson: You could have both
because if people are supplying medicines they have a right to
make a profit in the same way as you buy sweets or cars, and if
you go down the route of these small marginal areas of buying
medicines on dot com systems, then that will remove the percentage
of profit that those practices now make.
| 
